Thread: Schools teach C before assembly?

  1. #1
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Schools teach C before assembly?

    Seems a bit backwards to me.

    After learning high go low. Doesn't that make it harder than learning low and going high?

  2. #2
    Senior Member joshdick's Avatar
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    Imagine what it'd be like to be a person who had never programmed before to have to start out with assembly. That'd be asking too much. C models human thought more closely than assembly. It's easier to start in C.
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  3. #3
    carry on JaWiB's Avatar
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    See if I can come up with a decent analogy...Well anyways learning C(++) would be like learning how to put something together out of pre-built parts, while learning assembly would be like learning how to make all those parts...Not necessary to know how each part works, but the more you know the better

    Well even if that analogy is pretty bad, the point is that low level stuff is harder than high level stuff. Unless I'm mistaken, VB would be considered higher level than C++ because it does more of the internal stuff for you...And while C++ is a "high level" language you have more control over the computer.

    Point being, the more control you have the harder it gets to direct things, so the reason, like joshdick said is because its easier to learn

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    PC Fixer-Upper Waldo2k2's Avatar
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    >>"With great power comes great responsibility"

    So THAT's what int13 does...whoops
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  5. #5
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    So THAT's what int13 does...whoops
    ROFL.

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    I can see both sides of this argument. I think they should teach assembly prior to a high level language. It really makes you a better coder imo. In learning a HLL people have a tendancy to just declares lots of unnecessary variables and you simply cannot do this in assembly when you are working with a set number of registers and stack space. It just makes you appreciate what a HLL offers that much more. Just a thought.
    "...the results are undefined, and we all know what "undefined" means: it means it works during development, it works during testing, and it blows up in your most important customers' faces." --Scott Meyers

  7. #7
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    For me here is the layout of my "formal" education

    Pascal (Actually a very good language to learn. Even though I know C it still enforces some good practices and ideas)

    Next semester I'll be taking Microcomputer Assembly and C. Following semester is C++ and a data structure class.

    Java isn't required for my transfer agreement but might have to take it at the UC

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    They should teach assembly first if only to weed out the light-weights heh
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