1) is there a specific name given to people who study Assembly Language, or are they just called "Programmers" ?

2) what programs/things can be done (or are created) by people who use Assembly languages?

3) what kinds of companies hire people to work on Assembly Code? AND, is it possible for someone to work as a freelancer w/Assembly Code like people do for high level languages like C++, and Java?

Thank you in advance.

Assembler (on PCs) is usually used for writing sections of code where execution speed is the critical factor and you do not want compilers adding any overhead.

Every processor family has it's own assembly language (mnemonics), are you thinking of x86 assembler only or generalising?

Generalizing, as I don't have specific knowledge of the subject.

Likewise: is there more than one Assembly Language? and, if so, what are the differences between them?


Basically, my curiosity about assembly languages came from everyone- all over the place- telling me that if you want to be a good/better coder, it is strongly advised that one get a handle on assembly language.

Likewise: is there more than one Assembly Language? and, if so, what are the differences between them?

Of course as I said each processor family Zylog Z80, Intel x86, Motorola 68xx etc etc have their own assembly language.
Then there are the microcontrollers and PLCs etc.
The differences between them is they are all written specifically for the CPU they are controlling.
The mnenomics for a Motorola 6809 are completely different to the mnenomics for a Micro-Robotics VM1.

when people talk about coding in C and understanding assembly language ("at a machine level"), what assembly language are they talking about?

Usually people are talking about x86 assembly language since that is the most common chip type. C allows programmers to break into assembly language if they wish, but don't ask me anything beyond that

In general, C is much closer to the "machine" than other programming languages, with low level access to memory in the form of pointers, and no automatic garbage collection. C also doesn't have any formal Class -> object system, by default it is purely procedural, as the machine is.

thanks.

Can anybody answer any of the other questions in the O(riginal)P(ost)?

x86 refers to the whole class of Intel processers, yes starting at 8086, moving all the way through 286, 386, 486, and all the modern Pentium processors.

I think there might be a different assembly language for the 64 bit versions, not sure though. I've seen the reference x86-64 a few times.

Oh yeah, and x86 Assembly language includes AMD processors also, not just Intel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_assembly_language

Originally Posted by wayfarer07

I think there might be a different assembly language for the 64 bit versions, not sure though. I've seen the reference x86-64 a few times.

The only difference between a 64-bit and 32-bit processor, from the perspective of a compiler, is that memory addresses and registers are 64-bits in length rather than 32. The actual instruction set of 64-bit processors are backward compatible with the original x86; they must be in order for 32-bit x86 software to run on them.

The x86 instruction set has so much inertia that it would be difficult for any processor not implementing it to get a foothold in the market. You would need all knew compilers in order for any existing software to work on such a processor.