The Lush Engine

Introduction to Assembly Language

Title :Introduction to Assembly Language
Overview :A brief introduction to assembly language.
Audience :Beginner assembly language programmers.
Requirements :None.
Objectives :Introduce the reader to assembly language.

Section 1 - Introduction

To start off with, I am stating that the views contained in this article are those of me, Marc Gale. Others may disagree with me, but they aren't writing this introduction. If you don't agree with my views, that's your choice, I'm just trying to destroy some myths and fears that are associated with assembly language programming.

Assembly language is the programming language that is the closest to the way a processor 'talks'. Also, despite it's initial appearance, it can be very easy to learn and program with.

Assembly language, or assembler as it is more commonly known, doesn't have english words like many other programming languages. Instead it has a series of simple and very specific commands.

The combination of these commands and the data passed with them allows a programmer to achieve what is required.

Because assembler is very close to the processor, it is the most powerful of programming languages. Some people will say that this makes it more complicated and very difficult. In actual fact, the reverse is true. The small number of commands mean that there is less language to learn, leaving the programmer to develop code theories and techniques. Many other languages require you to learn a huge amount of commands, functions, and methods before you can even get a simple program to work.

Assembler also produces the fastest code, not by itself of course, you have to know how to use it properly, but in the end, compared with code written by the same person, using the same logic in another language, the assembler code will be faster. If this were not true, other languages would not have the facility to include assembler code into their own code for speed.

End of Tutorial