Is decompiling from binaries as easy as decompiling Java or Visual Basic programs?
No. Java bytecode programs have a lot of information in them, such as the name (including class name) of every method. In fact, about all that is missing in a bytecode program are the comments, and the names (and types) of local variables. Visual Basic programs, for some reason that some regard as suspicious, have even more information in the executable file (more than seems to be needed, for example). There are a number of successful Java and Visual Basic Decompilers, both free and commercial, that do a good job of recovering a usable source code for the program. Binary files are a totally different situation. Usually, there is no debugging information in them. However, dynamically linked library functions are usually referenced by name, so they are available. Often, library function parameter types are known, so there is more information. Statically linked library functions can sometimes be recognised using pattern matching. Binary files can also include difficult to handle instructi
