One of the first languages that were introduced in the 1940s or 50s, a very old and maybe an obsolete language even though it’s still in use till this moment, but with the revolution of programming and technology the world needed a more friendly language that can do more in less time.
Today, we’re going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Assembly language, a language that I really hate so much (very honest) and you’re going to know why in a minute.
What is Assembly language used for?
Assembly language was first introduced in the past century as a new and alternative way for programmers to code easily without memorizing a lot of code.
According to Wikipedia, Assembly language can be used in controlling microprocessors, building operating systems, manipulating hardware, detecting performance issues, device drivers and other low level embedded systems.
In short, it’s a language that’s more concerned or related to hardware than software unlike high-level programming languages like Java, C or C++.
Is it worth learning Assembly language?
Yes and No, OK let me explain, it depends on what you’re going to use it for, if you want to understand how a microprocessor or CPU works and want to manipulate it to do a certain task then the assembly language is the way to go, another reason would be working on an operating system like Windows or in a company that deals with programming hardware a lot.
But if you’re just curious about it or want to enter the magical world of programming then I wouldn’t recommend it as a first language to learn, you’re going to know why below.
Advantages of assembly language
Get to know how the CPU and Memory work.
Manipulating specific hardware the way you want (more access or control), I guess other high-level languages don’t have this feature.
Disadvantages of assembly language
“One line of C equals 4 or 5 lines of Assembly”, that’s a bad thing to read or hear, right? It’s true, if you want to print a simple text like “Hello World” to the screen it’s going to take 4 or 5 lines of code to implement.
Assembly language is a bad start for anyone looking to learn about programming, it’s just going to disappoint and bore you to death, I’m speaking from personal experience, I hated it, I have to do a lot of things just to multiply one number by another, you should select another high-level language that’s more user-friendly like Python or C, it’s more fun.
One block of code or software that was written for a specific CPU won’t work on the other simply because it has another type of CPU, shocking, right? Other high-level languages can work on as many CPUs as possible, let’s say, Assembly is hardware-specific, it may enable you to manipulate specific hardware as you want but the drawback is what was said above.
Unproductive language, time is precious, and it’s not wise at all to use it to code a big software, you better choose one of the high-level languages like C or Java.
Conclusion
Let me know below what you think about it, do you like it or use it on a daily basis? Or you just hate it like me and never had to use in any of your projects.
My judgment of this language may be brutal or unfair but it’s up to you eventually if you want to learn or not, let me know below in the comments section.
I hate CPP, the bloated cruel word/punctuation game that script kiddies love. Lie braries are like the Wednesday newspaper, full of adds that you will never look at but hangs around forever taking up space. Don’t use ASM for MacroBloat windows… in fact don’t use windows at all for anything.
It’s a C-Monkey world now and in order to use ASM you have to learn it. I use both and the lightning fast, sleek ASM is Ideal for less than microsecond timing requirements. It is another tool… but go ahead and use python if you must, for everything.