[wellylug]The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills

[Richard Hector]

On Wed, 2007-07-11 at 20:29 +1200, Phillip Hutchings wrote:
> On 7/11/07, Cliff Pratt <enkidu at cliffp.com> wrote:
> > nic wrote:
> > > And then there's DSP code, where _sometimes_ you want to get every last
> > > bit of performance out of a platform, and recoding an algorithm in
> > > assembler is the only practical option
> > >
> > > And porting a system to a new platform: you have to write the boot code
> > > in assembler, and you have to write the code create a C runtime
> > > environment in assembler.
> > >
> > You do not have to write in assembler to create either boot code or to
> > create a C runtime environment. You can do it in almost any language.
> 
> When you're creating the first compiler for an entirely new platform
> you have to write _something_ in assembler. GCC won't magically output
> valid code for an unknown platform.

You have to write something that can create assembler (and/or machine
code - if you're creating assembly language you'll need an assembler (or
assemble by hand)), so you'll need to know _how_ to write it, but not
necessarily write it directly.

But you don't necessarily need to know that to create a boot loader or
libc.

Richard