From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: AST&T syntax
Date: 4 Apr 2001 14:28:40 GMT
Organization: Aachen University of Technology (RWTH)
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Mathias K <papewaio AT sunderbynskabel DOT bd DOT se> wrote:

> I'm pretty new to programming, only done it at school using a
> borland compiler, but a friend recommended djgpp! =) so I decided to
> try..I am very pleased with it..it is great! but then i ran into a
> small problem, it wouldn't accept my assembler writings..

IMHO, you should seriously re-think your strategy, at this
point. Being "pretty new" to programming, you really shouldn't be
doing assembly, yet.  Assembly is quite a lot harder to do properly
than normal programming, so it's best left out until you know your
ways in the field more firmly.  

It's an old disease of 16 bit PC programmers (and their 'black art'
books...) that they think they always have to do all kinds of stuff in
assembly to get them done fast enough.  With good old Borland Turbo C
as the code generator to beat, that was easy.  But these days, with
CPUs getting faster all the time, and new generations coming up more
quickly than most humans can learn the skills necessary to really win
an optimization contest against a good compiler (like GCC, Watcom,
MSVC++ or the Intel VTune stuff), this becomes a less and less useful
plan.

At the minimum, if some assembly really has to be written to get the
necessary speed, you should think twice before trying to write it
yourself, rather than use existing, freely available libraries that do
this for you.  You probably won't be able to beat the speed of, say,
the Allegro engine, anyway.
-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.