alt Hacker NewsIs anyone still writing assembly in the age of LLMs? Asking seriously because most assembly is just doing one very simple thing very fast and because it's so simple conceptually, an LLM can easily code it without errors.
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I wrote a lisp compiler recently, and that involved generating assembly language.
My output is linux/amd64 assembly language which is compiled by nasm. I don't link to glibc, so I had to implement my "print int", "print string", and similar primitives in raw assembly.
I successfully implemented a stop© garbage collector, and other interfaces to the OS such as reading command-line arguments, environmental variables, and so on. All in assembly. Though my compiler is written in golang the runtime, and all supporting functions have to be in assembly to make sure that the binaries it produced are static.
(I wrote a lisp interpreter which can be compiled, and which can be used to run itself, so I got an indirect REPL.)
I'm not being flippant but I think part of your answer is in the first two words of the title.
IME while LLMs may help delivery utility in a finished work, humans often value the absorption, mastery, style, or constraint of performing a mundane activity hands-on and brains-on.
Yes. Mostly for learning purposes and for fun. Also, there are things you must drop down to assembly level in order to achieve. Implementing coroutines, a JIT compiler, etc. It's fun to learn about these.
> Is anyone still writing assembly in the age of LLMs ...
Yes. Its "simplicity" is exactly why we pick and assemble piece by hand - we imagine the leanest way.
LLMs are (not just in Assembly, but especially) very precious as a natural language manual.
> an LLM can easily code it without errors
One day it will probably also be able to have sex, and yet we think we will not pass on the experience - unless, like some kind of coding, it will be a "strictly professional only for money" operation (like in Monty Python's Argument sketch).
Edit: as esteemed emptybits wrote above, rephrasing: it's /the Art of/ Assembly.
Yes. And for the same reason I still write in C or Common Lisp - by hand - in the age of LLMs.
It’s a hobby.
You could've also asked if people still wrote assembly in the age of compilers, and the answer would be the same. Sometimes we want/need to control or understand what is emitted by the tool.
However, I want to point out the obvious fact that people are still playing the piano in the age of the self-playing piano. Humans are experiential creatures, and we enjoy a wide range of activities for their own sake that may have nothing to do with efficiency of output.
I do now and then, for bits of code that is not expressible in the language. Things like special instructions, or special fixups.
yes, i write c and asm professionally for small hard real-time mcus. llms give me wrong code nonstop in what little i have tried in my field. not a force multiplier
>> an LLM can easily code it without errors.
An LLM knowns nothing of the taste of ginger.
an LLM can easily code it without errors
can't tell if sarcasm or not. Just in case it's not.. in that case why don't we all vibe everything in assembly? No need for abstractions anymore since that's a human concept. LLM can do it without errors, as you say, and we'll reap the benefits of speed!
Yep. In my experience, LLMs easily go in circles with even simple assembly, creating fixes that result in 2x slower code and then fixing those with even slower code. They are pretty great as a reference or finding needle in the haystack bugs though!