What about assembly/assembler ?

[BorisTheOld]

Still it doesn't change its accomplishments a bit. Not last the fact the compiler and libraries you are using now are based on that.

Not to mention the OS!

It's irrelevant to me what language is used to write libraries and operating systems. They are just black boxes that provide services. Their code could be written in Egyptian hieroglyphics for all I care.

[TI-994A]

Just to clarify:

An assembly was something that one performed, as in, "I couldn't run the assembly because I dropped my card deck", or "I can't show you the assembly because a giant space goat ate the printout".

Such assemblies are performed by assemblers using code written in assembly language.

I was talking about Assembler as it was when I used it 50 years ago. That's why I called Assembler, Assembler, and not Assembly...

Perhaps more accurately, "when you used it 50 years ago while at IBM." The generic use of the term "assembly language" is propagated by the fact that they are intrinsically processor-specific. However, the same does not hold true for assemblers.

When you said:[quote=""BorisTheOld"]Most programmers were using Assembler, PL/I, COBOL, and FORTRAN.[/quote]which assembler were you referring to? Atari's? Texas Instruments'? Motorola's? They're all different. However, had you said "assembly language", there would have been no ambiguity. In all their documentation, IBM uses the term "assembler" or "assembler language" to specifically refer to their high level assemblers and respective command sets, which were themselves built upon their Basic Assembly Language.

Alternatively, this would have also been acceptable:

Most programmers were using Assemblers, PL/I, COBOL, and FORTRAN.

[Danilo]

<OFFTOPIC>

It was indeed very common to talk about "Assembler language" or just "Assembler" (referring the language, not the tool)
back in the good old days. I remember that as well, and I am not 40 yet.

- Assembler language programming: The IBM System/360
- Assembler Language Programming: The IBM System/370 Family
- Assembler Language Programming for the IBM 370
- Assembler Language for the IBM System 370: A Modular Approach
- Programming Assembler Language IBM 370, Third Edition
- Assembler Language Programming: The I. B. M. System 360 and 370
- IBM Assembler: An Intuitive Approach
- Programmers Guide to Assembler
- Structured Assembler Language for IBM Computers
- Assembler Language Programming for IBM and IBM Compatible Computers [Formerly 370/360 Assembler Language Programming]
- MVS Assembler Language
- Assembler Language with ASSIST
- Assembler Language with Assist and Assist 1 (4th Edition)
- Advanced Assembler Language and MVS Interfaces for IBM Systems and Application Programmers



</OFFTOPIC>

[PB]

[Rings]

yes, its a offtopic disscussion in the offtopic section.

well, i delete some stuff that doesn't fit in here (religous lines)
so don't wonder yourself.

[netmaestro]

Well if you have to have a disagreement at least it's about something important... (sometimes I really miss the old eyeroll smiley)

[TI-994A]

It was indeed very common to talk about "Assembler language" or just "Assembler" (referring the language, not the tool)
back in the good old days. I remember that as well, and I am not 40 yet.

Hi Danilo. Impressive list, although every one of those titles were in fact referring to the tool and not the language.

In fact, with the exception of the book by William Pervin, which is referring to the MIPS processor (see original book cover), all the others are specific to IBM mainframes.

Even Pervin himself refers to it as assembly language, and refers to assemblers only in the context of their specific processors (from his homepage):

In addition, I wrote the below mentioned book on MIPS assembler.

I hoped to develop an advanced assembly language course based on a DSP chip.

At present I am working on a workbook for ARM Assembler Programming.

Can we expect another slew of book covers?

[Foz]

I think it was simply, the language of the assembler, which is now defined as assembly.

[Danilo]

Today everybody says "assembly language" for the language and "assembler" for the tool.
Some decades ago also "assembler language" was used, and "I write in assembler", etc.

But to be honest, I don't care if anybody believes this or not. It is not very important to me anymore
and I don't want to argue about this minor things.

[PB]

Fine... "app" means iPhone software. Prove me otherwise.

[TI-994A]

Some decades ago also "assembler language" was used, and "I write in assembler"...

The former may be contextually right, but the latter is just wrong.

I think it was simply, the language of the assembler, which is now defined as assembly.

Hi Foz. You're quite right on that point.

If I remember correctly, way back from Computer Science 101, the word assembly originally referred to the drawn-out process of penning the mnemonic code on paper, getting it transcribed and punched onto source code cards, feeding those source code cards into a compiler which will punch out program code cards, and finally feeding the program code cards into the actual computer for execution. That, plus a whole lot of painstaking checking, sorting, collating, was known as assembling the code.

There was no concept of computer languages back then, and programs were made up of lists of mnemonic codes developed by the computer manufacturers themselves. However, when this lengthy assembly process was later automated, the utility program that performed it came to be known as the assembler, and eventually, as high-level languages began to emerge, this pioneering low-level format adopted the name of its precursory process, assembly.

[Demivec]

Danilo wrote:
Some decades ago also "assembler language" was used, and "I write in assembler"...
The former may be contextually right, but the latter is just wrong.

A previous posting of yours (with a link to a manual) explained that 'Assembler' and 'Assembly' were two different languages.

'Assembly' has a more or less one-to-one correspondence with the machine code produced. It is essentially a substitution language where an easier text and punctuation combination were use to represent the numbers in the machine code.

'Assembler' has the possibility or more likely one-to-many correspondence with the machine code produced. It creates a level of functionality that includes macros that can allow substitution and construction of more complex representations of 'Assembly' that are then translated into machine code. Some this slightly higher level functionality included variables (including boolean and text values) which had both local and global scopes, comparison operators to control what code was created, and sequence symbols that changed the order of an assembly (instead of next instruction line at next memory location).

In almost all cases when you used an 'Assembler' you used 'Assembler' language that in turn produced either 'Assembly' language or machine language.


I was confused many times in discussions and getting lost about why individuals were using different terms. Personally I consider the terms as interchangeable but they do in fact refer to different things.

[luis]

'Assembly' has a more or less one-to-one correspondence with the machine code produced.

Yes, through mnemonics.

'Assembler' has the possibility or more likely one-to-many correspondence with the machine code produced. It creates a level of functionality that includes macros that can allow substitution and construction of more complex representations of 'Assembly' that are then translated into machine code.

Because the assembler, as the tool translating the assembly to machine code, can optionally offers those instruments.
It's not casual the simplest were just called assemblers and the more powerful were called macro assemblers.
In both cases, assemblers and macro assemblers are still the tools translating assembly to machine code, but offering a different set of helpers, a little higher level, to write your assembly program with.
In a sense, every assembler can optionally offer (and often does) a pseudo language that help you writing assembly code at a higher level. If you like, that is the language of the assembler. Through it you write assembly programs.
And that's the reality in the current lineup of different assemblers, with their different features, available for the same kind of assembly.

Personally I consider the terms as interchangeable but they do in fact refer to different things.

They are two different things.

[TI-994A]

...In almost all cases when you used an 'Assembler' you used 'Assembler' language...

Hi Demivec. That statement of yours is akin to saying that when you used a compiler you used compiler language.

GCC, MSVC and Objective-C are all C language compilers. Anyone who uses any one of these compilers can accurately say that they program in the C language. But to be compiler-specific, they'd have to specify the compiler name.

Along the same logic, you could simply say that you used assembly language; but to say that you used an assembler language, you'd have to be specific, for example the IBM S/360 assembler language.