Re: New Web browser for MiNT.

[stehlik@cas3.zlin.vutbr.cz (Petr Stehlik)]

On Mon, 30 Mar 1998 16:23:28 +0200 (MET DST), Konrad Kokoszkiewicz wrote:

KK>- assembler programs are short. A simple GEM application (cleanly written)
KK>  takes few kilobytes including Devpac AES & VDI data structures.

that's true. But when you program graphics browser the data structures
(images, sound and video clips on WWW pages) often take much more
memory than program itself.

KK>Also it is much easier (at least for me) to develop programs written
KK>totally in assembler instead of mixed C & asm. Just because interfacing
KK>the code from C to asm is pure pain and wastes the CPU time (you have to
KK>push variables to the stack, then call teh assembler module with jsr, then
KK>pull everything back, do the job, then do rts in order to be back to the
KK>C).

that's not true... There's inline assembler, and if you prefer Devpac,
you can also pass the parameters to asm subroutines in registers (using
a wrapper)

KK>Further development of assembler programs by another programming team or
KK>by another programmer is not a problem when the new people know the
KK>assembler.

Just count the people who know m68k assembler and compare it with number
of "C" people...

KK>The idea that assembler is particularly hard and everything should be
KK>written in slow, but "easy" C, is a myth, especially when it applies to
KK>m68k assembler.

The basic idea of using C for programming in Unix-like environment is
IMHO the possibility of borrowing a *lot* of code from other free
applications, coming with source code in C, of course. For example this
new MiNTNet browser could be developed much sooner if the author used
lynx as the skeleton for HTML parsing. Once you start coding in m68k
asm, you can't get any useful source code for HTML, I think :-)

I know asm as well, but wouldn't use it for anything else than TSR or
depack routine...

Petr
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