ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE - A programming language specific to a microprocessor. It is a very low-level language, where you actually give the processor instructions like "MOV A,B", which moves a value from one register to another. As you might imagine, programming directly in assembly language is quite tedious. Thus, higher level languages, such as C++, Visual Basic, or Java, are normally used and then compiled into assembly language specific to the microprocessor on which the program will be run. The compiler tries to optimize the code during this process (e.g., "MOV A,B" followed by "MOV B,C" might be replaced by "MOV A,C"). Depending on how elegant the optimization is, the code may run faster than if no optimization is used. Today, very small and fast programs can be created by using assembly language (defeating code bloat), but assembly language programming is becoming a dying art. |
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE Definition
