Is assembly language useful for writing portable code?
(3a) Is assembly language harder to read than HLL code? (3b) Is assembly language harder to maintain than HLL code? (3c) Is assembly language harder to write than HLL code? (4) Is assembly language practical on RISC machines? (5) Is it easy to implement algorithm xyz in assembly language? (6) How many people know assembly language? (7) Will compilers ever produce code as good as a newbie assembly programmer? (8) Will compilers ever produce code as good as an intermediate asm programmer? (9) Will code optimized for one member of a CPU architecture be optimal for another? etc. While these questions are interesting in their own right, and many essays in these series will address the questions they raise, keep in mind that these questions may have different answers than the original question “Will compilers ever produce code as good as an expert assembly language programmer?” Switching the question mid-way through an argument is not a good way to win that argument; indeed, it’s a tacit adm
