ASM Community

Who says you have to use the built-in macros? If you'ld rather:

PUSH A
PUSH B
PUSH C
PUSH D
PUSH E
PUSH F
CALL FUNC

go for it. Myself, I'ld rather:

INVOKE FUNC,F,E,D,C,B,A

:grin:

yea i only dont like the high level stuff in the tutorials.

Generally I find it funny with assemblers like NASM that judge themselves superior by what they can't do :)

With local variables there is an advantage to push/call over invoke but besides that there is no opcode level difference. The IF/ELSE/ENDIF macro in MASM will choose the most efficient opcode arrangement for a comparison, something that you might not always do. MASM allows you to write code at a 1 to 1 ratio to opcodes or if you like to use the high level constructs. When writing example code or code others will see, I use the high levels but when I write for my own programs it looks more like this, mostly because I switch between MASM and GoAsm and this syntax is mostly compatible.

mov eax,uMsg

WMINITDIALOG:

cmp eax,WM_INITDIALOG

jnz WMCLOSE ; should trim 4 bytes here for a short

	; Load the image and create the back-buffer

	xor ecx,ecx

	invoke LoadImage, [hInstance], IDR_BITMAP, ecx,\

			ecx, ecx, LR_CREATEDIBSECTION

	mov [hBkGrnd],eax

	invoke GetDC,[hWin]

	push eax

	invoke CreateCompatibleDC,eax

	mov [memdc],eax

	pop eax

	invoke ReleaseDC,[hWin],eax

	invoke SelectObject,[memdc],[hBkGrnd]

	mov [oldobj],eax

	; Subclass the static control

	push ebx

	invoke GetDlgItem,[hWin],IDC_STATIC

	mov ebx,eax

	invoke GetWindowLong,ebx,GWL_WNDPROC

	invoke SetWindowLong,ebx,GWL_USERDATA,eax

	invoke SetWindowLong,ebx,GWL_WNDPROC,OFFSET StatProc

	pop ebx

	xor eax,eax

	inc eax

	ret



WMCLOSE:

cmp eax, WM_CLOSE

jnz short DEFPROC

fine. but for the purpose of a tutorial, why not teach in what is common to everyone. 80x86 assembly. not macros.

That would be a good idea but what syntax would you use ? Different assemblers have widely varying syntax for example some require that a % is prefixed on constants, on most others that would generate an error. Some require that memory operands be enclosed in [] some don't. MASM is the defacto standard as greater than 90% of the assembly language users write in that assembler, there are tutorials that have been translated to other syntaxes but saying that the tutorials should be in a common language is like asking to write C tutorials so that they have a common base with Pascal. The high level contructs the examples use are generally limited to .IF/.ELSE/.ENDIF and INVOKE, these are available in at least 3 assemblers I know of maybe more.

I can't speak for Iczelion but one of the main goals has been to make assembler more available to a wider audience and less of a 1337 language that only a few virri writers used. As a programming platform, to be considered for general use it has to be robust and also have RAD tools like the high level constructs. Without those it is little more than a curiousity that people program in to have blazing graphics or to show off to their friends. The IF/ELSE/ENDIF and other high level constructs help by making a program both faster to write and generally easier to debug, the great thing is that if you find them slowing you down you can always elect to ignore them. As I had said above, I judge the power of an assembler by what it does, not what it can't do, sometimes low level can just be a pain in the a*s when you just want to churn out a quick routine. If you want a compromise between the two types, high level MASM and low level NASM you should look at GoAsm, it is my preference and it handles locals much better than most ;)

http://www.godevtool.com/

Right now you're lucky, you have not yet invested 1000's of hours learning one way. All roads are still open to you so pick the one that is most comfortable and not the one that everyone tells you is the right one because of this stupid reason or that. They are all good in their own way.

Oh I think I might understand what you've been saying all this time. The tutorials use High level control structures which some assemblers like nasm doesn't have so beginners to assembly language using an assembler like nasm might have problems converting the tutorials to nasm syntax.

PUSH A
PUSH B
PUSH C
PUSH D
PUSH E
PUSH F
CALL FUNC

go for it. Myself, I'ld rather:

INVOKE FUNC,F,E,D,C,B,A



well that is not true ! masm does not always translate

INVOKE FUNC,F,E,D,C,B,A


us that ....


some times is very limitative to use it becouse makes in locals

lea eax, ; invoke place here this .....
PUSH eax ; if we use here the local
PUSH B
PUSH C
PUSH D
PUSH E
PUSH F
CALL FUNC

One reason I prefer MASM over C, which i dont think was mentioned (could be wrong), is the fact that MASM32 is not typed like C is. I personally hate having to learn how to write a program that conforms to a program, to make a program :rolleyes: . Pointers are the worst in this case! Im masm every handle/pointer can simply be proto typed as ":DWORD". End of story! No casting, no convincing the C compiler to do what i want... Its amazing sometimes how much casting goes on for something that can be done in MASM with only a couple lines of code!

Regards,
:NaN:

yikes, this is not the first time I heard someone say this about MASM. It's a good assembler makes coding a lot easier.

After using MASM I never want to go back to the time when I started ASM programming on the x86 in DOS using TASM 3.0 :( or the time when I did Z80 assembly earlier :S (Well Z80 ASM isn't as complicated as x86)