apparently you missed 90% of this discussion. At no point did Chris say that low-level was not worth understanding. He's pointing out that this "I'm a hacker from way back who can write out machine language," is stupid and really makes no sense in any sort of setting. IT's good to know, good to understand, but it's not like you're going to get a job writing machine language generally. Maybe if you make your own processor it'd be useful.
On 4/9/2011 8:27 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:
I haven't read 65% of the messages in this thread, frankly because the SNR is far too low. So can you guys please just listen to Ken on this one? low level is important to know and understand. End of conversation. Now go do something fun. It's Saturday night. Take care, Sina -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 8:06 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers I think we are just going to have to disagree on this. While I doubt anyone is going to rush out and write a bit of Machine language I think it is still important to know how. It's sort of like saying it's not important to know that there is a linker and what it does most people on this list will never know what the linker does because they deal mainly with High level languages but that doesn't mean the linker is not important. Most people will never write machine language but when creating electronic circuits with smaller chips it is a useful tool. True you may never hand write it but in creating hardware it is very useful in reading it. I just found learning to write it was very useful back in the good old Hack hardware cartridges days. Sure the Intel book has both got bigger and more complex but I just saw a post where a guy wrote a hello world in Machine language just to prove it could be done. Now I will point out he did it in Linux and he had to make his own linker of sorts well a shell linker all it did was write the file with the numbers he wanted but I think he did that just so he could use a normal editor and he had to add the Aelf stuff on top but he did it in 120 bites which I find pretty impressive since 80 of the bites were AELF stuff. Anyway I am sure we are boring most of the people on this list. Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Coale Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 7:39 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers Wait, you are adding new stuff in here. Yes, to me, it is important to know how to optimize code for either size or speed. It is also important to know how programs are executed and created (knowing the PE32 format, for example); however, knowing how to write a program by scratch by using a hex editor and writing pure byte code is not important. And, you are misinterpreting my reason for saying it is not important. I'm not saying it's not important because it is nasty studying. I'm saying it is not important because it is simply not practical and teaches you no more than studying assembly and operating systems (assuming you are actually learning). And I didn't say it wasn't useful, either. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is always good. But, I said it wasn't important. You seem to be mixing up the knowledge required to do something and the knowledge gained from doing said thing. In order to start editing a program using a hex editor, you have to already have the knowledge to do it (as in, you have to know that there is a data section, a symbolic table, etc.). You gain no new knowledge (aside from knowing how to edit executables) from editing, and/or writing, executables from within a hex-editor. On 4/9/2011 3:59 PM, Ken Perry wrote:Oh really? I found it very useful knowing how to minimize code and data sections by hand. It explains what compilers and linkers have to gothroughand ways to get around problems that exist. It even is nice knowing howexefiles are laid out. I agree that it's a nasty bit of study to get to that point but I totally disagree that the knowledge is not useful. In fact if you ever want to get involved with the GNU compiler group believe me it's useful. Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Coale Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 6:52 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers My knowledge of how the processor works (by means of knowing assembly and OS development) is useful. Knowing how to write a program using only byte code is not (and I couldn't do it without many free hours and lots of reference manuals, and even then it would be a difficult task). Not to belittle your knowledge, but I'm just saying that being able to write a program using a hex-editor (and if you can, more power to you) is not very helpful in understanding how computers work; learning assembly and learning operating system design is where it is important, I would say. On 4/9/2011 3:45 PM, Ken Perry wrote:Yes and us true geeks used to dream hex in our sleep. I think there are still some of us left and I am no longer one, I know of all the possibilities and I can still code in ASM for burning chips but I nolongerdream in op codes and registers, memory locations and IRQ's. All I was saying is learning of the existence and how it works is invaluable to a programmer even today. Are you telling me your knowledge of the subjectisnot useful? Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Coale Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 3:30 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers I didn't say it was impossible (after all, how else would a compiler work?) I said that it was asinine and impractical. I say this because the x86 instruction set is amazingly complex. Sure someone could use a debugger to look around at machine code, that's not hard at all (in fact, I do it a lot with vc++ to debug things and get performance boosts). But, writing a binary file from scratch? I see it being possible, but you would need to know the encoding of every instruction you use. For example, "int imm8" is apparently 0xCD + the immediate byte, so to do int 80h, you'd have 0xCD80. That is fairly simple, but the "mov" instructions where you can have memory, immediate, and register operands are difficult, and then for each memory, immediate, and register operand you have an 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and for x64, 64-bit versions. It's no small feat to write a binary by hand.Laugh yes I have read them and there was a time I could write some verygoodstuff with nothing but a debugger. Just because it's nasty don't meanit'simpossible. I was not even in the same class of some of the guys I usedtohang out with. I knew one that won a programming contest who wrote a program to display a naked woman with nothing more than Assembler and atexteditor. As for machine language you can write it on your own if youknowenough. Unfortunately time has dulled my memory of useless interrupts because we have so much easier ways to do things now. I think I could probably get a command line app to run with nothing but a hex editor but calling the GUI might be beyond me because you would have to do someseriousdigging to get that to work and sometimes the information is just not available anymore. Ken Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher Coale Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 2:23 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers What? Have you ever read the x86 information sheets? Teaching someone assembly is a good way to teach them how a computer works -- having them write programs in pure byte code (especially for x86) is both asinine and impractical. Maybe not so much for an extremely extremely simple virtual machine or basic processor, but complex instruction sets like x86 are flat-out beyond writing op-codes by hand. If you don't believe me, just take a poke at the NASM source code. ;) On 4/8/2011 6:47 PM, Ken Perry wrote:I am not quite as old as you but I come from the same time zone. I hadtolearn assembler to hack games on the Vic 20 and the commodore 64 andtheTIbut more than that when I joined the Air Force and took on Electronics Assembler made my life easier. Then later in life after I lost my siteItook software engineering and had to burn chips and while we could have wrote stuff in C it was much easier to control the registers and stuffwithASM. If we used C we allot of the time had to use special assembler keywords to get things to work quite right. If you look on the FruitBasketpage I was also insane enough to write the fruit basket in Assemblerforwindows xp and it runs in vista. I am not sure if that runs in Windows7but I should revisit it and make sure it does. Lost knowledge is not agoodthing. Assembler may not be a way I would write a project now days butifyou want to teach someone how your computers work there is only onethingbetter. The one thing better is straight opt codes using a debuggerandwatching what is going on. Well you could also write straight binaryfileslike a good Fortran coder but who does that any more. That what Ishoulddois create the fruit basket with nothing but a hex editor. Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Cox Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 11:40 AM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Littlefield,Tyler<tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:Assember? Really? You must be almost as old as me! I can't even find people who care about speed or memory usage anymore.I love assembler. It's a great way to teach people what's going onunderthehood and make them think about what they do. Every time I see someone reserve a 100k buffer just because, I cringe. :)We must be from the same generation. I'm 47, and learned to program in machine code on an 8080 based Intel board with a hex keypad and some LEDs. It was a couple of years before I found out that people programmed using assemblers, rather than entering hex by hand. I worry that the new generation's early experience with computers is amazing games and technology so complex they could never realistically hope to understand it. What's the natural path now days for kids to go from playing computer games to writing them? On the old Apple IIs, you just typed list instead of run, and there was all the code. Bill __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
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