Also most of the people wonder if assembly programs are really faster, smaller than their HLL(high level languages) counterparts.
Basically assembly is a low level language which is very close to machine language, which has its own set of rules.Every processor has its own instruction set, and the most common processor family we use is x86 (e.g. pentium) and AMD, more or less has the same instruction set.
When you write a program in any HLL, the compiler creates the equivalent code in assembly obviously after linking the required files and libraries.
Most of the people say that modern compilers can create code as efficient as assembly code, thats not completely true, it just depends upon the coder.
A compiler will always create the same code for same program, but if someone choses to directly write a program in assembly, he can really create highly optimized code.
The computers we use have RISC(reduced instruction set computer), the instructions are relatively fewer and simpler and in this all operations are done within the registers of CPU.
Also nowadays newer processors have more number of registers for advanced vector and floating point calculations, so if you still use the old compiler and most of the “robust” code wont utilize them, so you spend so much on your processor with cool features like hyper threading and dual core, it still functions like your previous one, without any significant performance boost, the reason is the software isnt optimized for your processor.
So if you know assembly and know exactly what you want and what all available resources you have, you can create much better programs, also you can tweak some of your programs for better performance.
Though like any other programming language, it takes a while for you to start writing efficient code, but surely its worth it.
A lot of people say that assembly is very hard. The fact is that it is not hard to learn, the only thing which makes it difficult to learn is the fact that you need to know your processor very well.
Basically if you want to code in assembly you need to learn all the available registers(including stack pointers, flags etc), you need to know the instruction set, addressing modes, and basic syntax of instructions and a general program.
Also the fact that assembly programs are not written similar to HLLs, makes it a little difficult.
So efficiency of a program depends upon the programmer. The modern compilers are very efficent but they cant beat human brain yet.
Also assembly gives you the power to crack programs, write shellcode, and create really small and fast keyloggers
.So i get the question, is assembly a good option for a begginer?
Well, assembly is really different from HLLs so if begginers want to learn a programming language they should not chose assembly but if they are interested in knowing more about there computer and how things work under the hood and not afraid of a little hard work, they should definitely go for assembly. However after assembly when you go on to HLLs, you'll say, omg thats so simple!!
Ive been collecting as many as I can
