Posts tagged with “compilers”

Interesting ChatGPT conversation

I asked:

Were assembly coders feeling threatened when compilers emerged?

ChatGPT said:

Yes, many early assembly coders did feel threatened or skeptical when high-level language compilers emerged, but the reaction was nuanced and evolved over time.

Initial Reaction: Skepticism and Resistance

In the 1950s and 1960s, when high-level languages like Fortran (1957) and Algol (1958) were introduced, assembly programmers often reacted with:

  • Skepticism about performance
    Assembly programmers prided themselves on writing highly optimized, machine-specific code. They doubted that early compilers could generate code as fast or efficient as hand-crafted assembly.

  • Fear of job displacement
    Assembly programming was a specialized and respected skill. The idea that someone with less hardware-level knowledge could write working programs threatened the status and necessity of low-level coders.

  • Belief in lack of control
    High-level languages abstracted away machine specifics. For many assembly programmers, this felt like a dangerous loss of control — especially for systems programming or performance-critical applications.

Realities That Changed Opinions

Rapid Improvement in Compilers

  • Compilers got better quickly, especially with optimization phases.
  • Over time, compilers began outperforming hand-written assembly in many domains (especially with modern CPU architectures that benefit from certain instruction patterns or pipeline optimizations).

Rising Complexity of Software

  • Writing large-scale applications in assembly became untenable.
  • High-level languages allowed larger teams, better code reuse, and improved debugging.

Shifting Roles

  • Assembly coders often transitioned into compiler design, systems programming, or performance profiling roles where low-level expertise remained crucial.
  • Operating systems, embedded systems, and performance-critical parts of software still used hand-tuned assembly.

Emergence of Mixed Approaches

  • In time-critical code, developers often used inline assembly or wrote only specific routines in assembly while the rest was in a high-level language.
  • Today, even JIT compilers (like in JavaScript engines) are often written by people with deep knowledge of assembly.

A Famous Anecdote

When John Backus introduced Fortran, many assembly programmers scoffed. One IBM engineer reportedly bet that no compiler-generated code could match hand-written assembly.

That bet was lost within a few years as the Fortran compiler began producing more efficient machine code than most human programmers.

In Summary

Yes, many assembly programmers were initially threatened by compilers — both due to performance concerns and fears of devaluation of their skills.

But the field matured, and many adapted — often becoming the very people who built the tools that replaced pure assembly programming in most domains.