From:	"John S. Fine" <johnfine AT erols DOT com>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: NASM? Thanks, but no thanks. (Was Re: Execution finished before started!)
Date:	Fri, 22 May 1998 15:50:01 -0400
Organization:	Erol's Internet Services
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Message-ID:	<3565D6E9.2EF8@erols.com>
References:	<199805221253 DOT OAA24000 AT basement DOT replay DOT com>
Reply-To:	johnfine AT erols DOT com
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Anonymous wrote:

> When it comes to things like using any particular ONE of the HUNDREDS of development
> systems, I am a "bandwagon" type.  I will sit down this minute to use NASM if, say,
> 25 people in this newsgroup can tell me:

  Well, I can be one of those 25.  I can say things very similar to your
template statement.

>    "I was a regular user of [licensed/unlicensed copies of] TASM [or MASM],
>      and when I found NASM, I felt like [name any feeling or event which
>      is equivalent to having had the most intense experience of pleasure you can
>      recall].

  I am a regular user of _several_ licensed copies of both TASM and
MASM.

  I was/am constantly frustrated by the excessive syntax in MASM and
TASM
and their general attitude that the assembler knows best and the
programmer
shouldn't be trusted.  I really like NASM for that reason.

  I was constantly frustrated in attempts to exchange TASM code across
the net with other programmers.  Typically we would have slightly
different versions of TASM and the code wasn't compatible.  Licensing
multiple versions is expensive and legally obtaining obsolete versions
may be difficult, even if you are willing to pay for them.  Similar
problems (only worse) occured when I exchanged MASM source code in
work situations.  Anything other than exactly the right version was
hopeless and we needed to purchase multiple licenses.  NASM is no less
version dependent, but if it is ever an issue, I can simply send/
request exactly the right version of NASM along with the source code.
That right eliminates a massive problem.

  I am constantly frustrated in all three assemblers that the authors
made stupid little errors that could be corrected easily, but
uncorrected force me into horrible kludges in my own code.  With NASM
there is always a ceiling to this particular frustration.  I have the
NASM source code and if a bug bothers me too much, I fix it.  Certain
MASM/TASM bugs have cost me a hundred times the effort to live with
that it ought to cost to fix, but lacking source code, I don't have
that option.

-- 
http://www.erols.com/johnfine/
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Peaks/8600/

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