wee doors banging

A lunchtime discussion (somehow) got on to the subject of assembly language programming, and I was of course asked “So, what’s it like programming in assembly then?”. I get asked this more often than you’d think as very few developers I run in to have any experience with it and they’re always surprised to meet someone who’s dived below C level. Maybe I just don’t hang around with the right sort of programmer.

To answer this hoary old chestnut I always refer to the classic internet text “How to shoot yourself in the foot with different programming languages”. This has been floating around the interbeams for many a year and I’m probably showing my vintage even revealing that I know about it. There are many versions to be found with various folk having added entries for their own personal favourite language to the original text over the years, but the entry for assembly language programming has remained much the same:

Shooting yourself in the foot with assembly language:
You spend six months inventing gunpowder, bullets, a gun, your hand and your foot. When you finally try pulling the trigger, the gun beeps three times, explodes and shoots you in the head.

That is what it’s like!