Book Excerpt: Write Great Code—Think Low Level, Write High Level
As a high-level-language programmer, if you want to know what's really going on with your programs, you need to spend a little time learning assembly language—and you won't find an easier introduction.
by Randall Hyde
April 14, 2006
o matter how well you write and understand high-level programming languages, your applications can probably benefit if you're willing to dig down into the lower-level code that makes the computer work. And for most developers, that means learning assembly language and understanding compilers.
In Write Great Code, Volume 2: Thinking Low-Level, Writing High-Level (No Starch Press, March 2006), author Randall Hyde speaks to a new generation of programmers who haven't been taught assembly language, and many of whom haven't been trained in a computer science curriculum. This book, the second installment in the popular Write Great Code series, explains how compilers work to translate high-level language statements and data structures into machine code. Armed with this understanding, programmers will be able to choose a proper mix of high-level language statements to produce more efficient software—all without having to give up the productivity and portability benefits of a high-level language.
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o matter how well you write and understand high-level programming languages, your applications can probably benefit if you're willing to dig down into the lower-level code that makes the computer work. And for most developers, that means learning assembly language and understanding compilers.
