CompuServe Thread

Chris, What does a HLL buy you? The 2 main advantages are productivity and ease of maintainance. The productivity issue is seen generally since each line of a HLL produces multiple lines of Assembly. I have gone over C listings for example, and it averages about 5 or 6 assembly instructions for each line of C. Now this depends on the line, for example: a++ will generate much fewer lines than a = (c/d) * (b – 32.); If a HLL produced one line of assembly for each line of source, than I would say by definition, it would not be a HLL. Actually, strictly speaking C is a Medium Level Languange (MLL), but for the purposes of our discussion, I don't think it would hurt to call it a HLL. REAL programs? On Multics, Operating System and Applications such as word processors and editors, compilers, database managers, spreadsheets, network managment systems, communications protocol, etc. are ALL written efficiently in a HLL. It can be done, but again, I think it depends on the most part on the quality of the compiler. Of course, the maintainance advantage is obvious, which is why many vendors choose a HLL over assembly. I have tried to debug many assembler and HLL programs, and let me tell you that a well written HLL program is so much more easier than a well written assembly language program (especially with a good symbolic debugger). I think Commodore Amiga made the right choice in choosing a HLL (BCPL/C) for coding their operating system, and hopefully will not change it. John G. Ata