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To: nobody AT REPLAY DOT COM (Anonymous), djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: Nate Eldredge <nate AT cartsys DOT com>
Subject: Re: NASM? Thanks, but no thanks.  (Was Re: Execution finished
  before started!)
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 22:58:08 -0700
Message-ID: <19980524055757.AAF22535@ppp108.cartsys.com>
Precedence: bulk

At 11:35  5/23/1998 +0200, Anonymous wrote:
>It is my very humble opinion that the MASM/TASM style of structure
declaration and
>instantiation is superior to the approach the NASM authors have taken, for
if anything,
>the former's approach to structure's appears less complicated than the
latter's.
>I suspect in a future version (0.98?) the authors of NASM may just rectify this
>difference in style.  A record/structure for an assembly programmer is
useful, if
>not outright essential, and the use of an 'istruct/iend' with its confusing
>initialization seems altogether unnecessary.

You should tell *them* that.

>2. Use of src,dest rather than dest,src:  complete novices are stupefied by
>   this notation (unless they read Hebrew or Chinese or some right->left rather
>   than left->right language).  I can understand a right->left process when
>   everything in the syntax/symbolic notation is right to left, that is:
>
>          [xbe],xae vom

(Hmm, the last word is somehow appropriate...)

I have heard that Intel's intent was to make it more like algebraic (C?)
syntax. i.e.:

   mov foo, bar <--> foo = bar
   add foo, bar <--> foo += bar

But clearly that hasn't proven to be a good choice.

Nate Eldredge
nate AT cartsys DOT com