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

[Cliff Pratt]

Bruce Hoult wrote:
> On 7/12/07, Cliff Pratt <enkidu at cliffp.com> wrote:
>> Phillip Hutchings wrote:
>> > Cross compiling or not, at some point you _WILL_ have to touch the raw
>> > metal, otherwise how does the compiler know that 1 + 2 needs to
>> > output:
>> > li    r3,1
>> > li    r4,2
>> > add    r5,r4,r3
>> >
>> > to get 3 in r5 when no compiler is available? You can't write that 
>> in C.
>> >
>> You absolutely can! Tell me what the machine code is for that snippet on
>> the target machine and I can code that as a variable!
> 
> Cliff, my good buddy, in order to do that someone has to know how to
> program in machine code on that machine.  Which is exactly what I've
> been arguing all along.
> 
> Nice of you to finally agree.
> 
I agree that you need to *know* assembler code (or more accurately 
*machine code*) for a machine to write a compiler. What you do not need 
is an assembler program. If that is what the point of difference is, 
that's fine.

Cheers,

Cliff