Re: An idea to resolve this (Was: Re: [cc65] ca65 for stand-alone asm projects)

From: Spiro Trikaliotis <ml-cc651trikaliotis.net>
Date: 2010-11-06 20:37:00
Hello,

* On Sat, Nov 06, 2010 at 12:16:47PM +0100 Markus Stehr wrote:
 
> Just an idea, what if ca65 would get a new pseudo-OP called .option?
> So, if you write a C64 program you would write .option c64 and the
> assembler would automaticly create those loader address bytes at the
> start.

Adding to what Uz already said: I think one of the big advantages of
ca65 actually is that it is a very professional assembler. If you have
worked with good assemblers for different systems, you know what I mean.

In fact, ca65 is pretty much agnostic of the target machine - and this
is a good thing. Creating something like a basic loader or a program
start address is not actually the task of the assembler. You have to
give it yourself.

It is very well in the basic philosophy "one task, one tool." It is one
of its biggest advantages: It does its job pretty well, but it does not
try to do more than that. This can be left of for other tools or for the
user.

Or would you expect ca65 (and the linker) to generate a full GEOS file
in VLIW format if you want to compile for GEOS?


Another thing: If someone believes ca65 is too complicted, he most
probably actually does not need its features. For such a person, this
assembler is probably not the right tool. Many years ago, I could not
believe why someone would need something like a linker. I would have
argued like "ca65 should generate a ready-to-run executable
out-of-the-box."

Time has gone by, and many projects later, I found out what benefit it
can have to be able to not have to do it. Even in my active C64 times,
when I tried to write my first simple GEOS program, I found out that
having the load address added is a bad thing, as GEOS did not like this.
You had to use some (simple, yes) tricks in order to let GEOS load such
an executable, or you had to do some postprocessing in order to remove
the load address.

To make a long discussion short: Instead of trying to add features that
can be "solved" rather easily for everyone who knows what he is doing -
something that one can expect from an assembler programmer -, Uz should
concentrate on what he has always done: Fix bugs if they surface, add
the core of the tools, and make one of the greatest free
compiler/assembler systems out there. ;)

 
> Just my thoughts.

Same here, 
Spiro.

-- 
Spiro R. Trikaliotis                              http://opencbm.sf.net/
http://www.trikaliotis.net/                     http://www.viceteam.org/
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Received on Sat Nov 6 20:37:14 2010

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