Write Great Code: Thinking Low-Level, Writing High-Level, Volume 2
- 10h 13m
- Randall Hyde
- No Starch Press
- 2006
In the beginning, most software was written in assembly, the CPU’s low-level language, in order to achieve acceptable performance on relatively slow hardware. Early programmers were sparing in their use of high-level language code, knowing that a high-level language compiler would generate crummy, low-level machine code for their software. Today, however, many programmers write in high-level languages like C, C++, Pascal, Java, or BASIC. The result is often sloppy, inefficient code. You don’t need to give up the productivity and portability of high-level languages in order to produce more efficient software.
In this second volume of the Write Great Code series, you’ll learn:
- How to analyze the output of a compiler to verify that your code does, indeed, generate good machine code
- The types of machine code statements that compilers typically generate for common control structures, so you can choose the best statements when writing HLL code
- Just enough 80x86 and PowerPC assembly language to read compiler output
- How compilers convert various constant and variable objects to write faster and shorter programs.
With an understanding of how compilers work, you’ll be able to write source code that they can translate into elegant machine code. That understanding starts right here, with Write Great Code, Volume 2: Thinking Low-Level, Writing High-Level.
About the Author
Randall Hyde is the author of The Art of Assembly Language, one of the most highly recommended resources on assembly, and Write Great Code, Volume 1 (both No Starch Press). He is also the coauthor of The Waite Group’s MASM 6.0 Bible. He has written for Dr. Dobb’s Journal and Byte, as well as professional and academic journals.
In this Book
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Write Great Code—Thinking Low-Level, Writing High-Level, Volume 2
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Introduction
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Thinking Low-Level, Writing High-Level
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Shouldn't You Learn Assembly Language?
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80x86 Assembly for the HLL Programmer
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PowerPC Assembly for the HLL Programmer
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Compiler Operation and Code Generation
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Tools for Analyzing Compiler Output
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Constants and High-Level Languages
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Variables in a High-Level Language
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Array Data Types
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String Data Types
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Pointer Data Types
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Record, Union, and Class Data Types
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Arithmetic and Logical Expressions
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Control Structures and Programmatic Decisions
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Iterative Control Structures
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Functions and Procedures
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Engineering Software
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Online Appendices
