[Tfug] OS written in Assembly

[Bexley Hall]

--- On Wed, 8/19/09, Jordan Aberle <jordan.aberle at gmail.com> wrote:

> The only reason why I posted this is
> because I was impressed that someone was able to actually
> write a fully functional operating system in assembly, no
> other reason.  
> Of course, why write in assembly when you can
> write in an object oriented language...

One of the advantages of writing in ASM is that you see
*everything* that is going on in the processor.  Conversely,
one of the DISADVANTAGES (IMO) of OOPS is you don't see *any*
of this detail.

I would be really nervous about writing an OS in an OO language
as there are just way too many subtle things that go on
"behind the scenes" with most OO languages.  And, since *most*
OS's need to be (at least SOMEWHAT) reliable (and many need
SOME determinism), you'd really need to be an expert in the
particular OO language to understand how each statement
you write might potentially bite you.

I think a reason so many "modern" applications SUCK is they
encapsulate too much and the designers are too insulated
from all the things that can go wrong in each line of
HLL code that they write.  E.g., in C, its the equivalent
of failing to test malloc() -- in C++, its failing to
intelligently catch all exceptions!

<shrug>  YMMV