inlining or not inlining...

[bearophile]

Walter:

> The inline assembler can't do everything a standalone assembler can, but what it 
> does it does well enough, and is a pleasure (to me) to use.

The D inline assembler has another purpose you have not underlined: it's a didactic tool to learn some assembly without nothing but the normal D compiler. Delphi too allows inline asm, and I know some people that have used just that to learn and use assembly.

The evolution of species is not a constant flow of changes. After a period of quick change, species often froze in many of their characteristics, and then they adapt only in a small ways, or in "alternative" ways, while keeping most of their original design. In the meantime new species branch sideways, and most of the actual fundamental changes happen during this side branching.

To me something quite similar seems to happen to software technology: people that program in assembly seems furiously attached to ancient ways to use assembly, even if new and new languages and their ecosystems have invented better and better ways to program.

There is not much intrinsic in the asm language that forces people to not define and use a good type system on asm instructions to catch programming bugs, to indent asm code well, to use a modern IDE on asm code, and so on. But most asm programmers seem uninterested in those new tools and new possibilities. All this is quite fascinating.

Bye,
bearophile