1. I've always seen assembler code and assembly code used interchangeably.
2. If by "our world" you mean machines that some on this list have
programmed, then yes, you're odd; some of those machines were decimal
and some had word lengths for which octal was more natural
If by "our world" you mean contemporary binary machines, then there's
nothing odd.
3. An assembler is a specialized compiler; we are assembling assembler
source code, AKA assembler code, assembly code.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי
נֵ֣צַח יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List <[email protected]> on behalf
of Phil Smith III <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2024 1:43 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Assembler vs. assembly vs. machine code
External Message: Use Caution
(Cross-posted to IBM-MAIN, IBMVM, and the IBM assembler list)
I just finished a book, The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak, which I quite
enjoyed. Part of the plot involves characters writing code on a Commodore 64,
including some "machine code". It seemed clear from the description that they
meant what I'd call assembler; some Googling quickly found
https://secure-web.cisco.com/14nOhjt_T8D1u4AXNqxRoSXBSRBv114mVUVUx_SYBdlPQVGgL_--MBTp0k2WsTsyDYzUXPUUq5NMBcd_zd7yDqFgrH0cLA7TKnhTAPsnoZ2rw_4dG9XLBlDT_YFOJeourL4q5zAIoCrUi6DpuHwRoP9yyVLiNC_j2lQ5_NyjDKtDxObZS4hLHfGI8kPdB8yRqmBBZmJH5bpKtnsL-NhecQNohPbRYjReqdpHDA484VJO_QmBcalTicBd2eHPQh2mg0RTToHyDATQTI_bPmvuQM1urY1udBZ56h0Odl1r0Vd85VItF9mTHJM_jd9AmU8lWuZI6DggAudKyvz9hDtZc8UhRvteerCfCOiyYhT2kQbV59qQE_zCNERbpj3QWlTWlCHDQ9kl1gyeTa_qr0SZy1ZoVnznwyey23G39Ueb5wTo/https%3A%2F%2Fproject64.c64.org%2FSoftware%2Fmlcom.pdf,
a guide to such programming for the C64 which definitely seems to blur the
terms.
I wrote the author, who cheerfully confirmed that yes, they're used
interchangeably in that world.
Which led me to wonder several things:
1. Which platforms call it assembler and which call it assembly? (And why?)
2. Am I odd in thinking that in our world, "machine code" is the hex that the
hardware expects, and assembler is the opcodes/mnemonics that we mostly use?
3. What are we "assembling"?
On #1, I suspect that we call it assemblER because that's what ASMXF and H and
HL call themselves as much as any other reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language says in part "assembly language
(alternatively assembler language...or symbolic machine code)", which confirms
that it's blurry but doesn't otherwise clarify.
It also answers, kinda, #3:
The term "assembler" is generally attributed to Wilkes, Wheeler and Gill in
their 1951 book The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital
Computer,... who, however, used the term to mean "a program that assembles
another program consisting of several sections into a single program".
So perhaps the two a-words aren't even really appropriate! Too late now, of
course...
What say ye? Does any of this conflict with your usage/thoughts?
...phsiii
