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0 pointsmagduf7y ago0 comments

>x86 assembly is a high level language. It's analogous to JVM bytecode.

If you take this position, then having the distinction between "low level" and "high level" languages becomes pointless, and we have no way to distinguish between languages like x86 assembly and C and languages like Python and Haskell. This is why we use the terms "low level" and "high level": some of these languages have a lower level of abstraction than others. The fact that it's not giving you a great idea of exactly what's happening in the transistors is irrelevant: "low" and "high" are relative terms, not absolute.

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munificent7y ago

> The fact that it's not giving you a great idea of exactly what's happening in the transistors is irrelevant

The author's point is that what's happening in the transistors is relevant — not controlling it is what led to Spectre and heavy performance losses if you aren't smart about cache usage. Thinking of C as a "low-level language" makes it easier for people to overlook that fact.

ori_b7y ago

And the parent's point is that there should be a distinction in level between Haskell and C, for example.

Avshalom7y ago

Then we need a finer grained taxonomy instead of the current model that is essentially: machine code;c/forth; literally everything else.

I mean that should be blindingly obvious anyway looking at the actual history of programming languages and CPUs but here we are in 2018 insisting that we must have exactly three categories with exactly the definitions of: assembly;C/forth; everything else.

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