Docstrings considered too complicated

[Alf P. Steinbach]

* MRAB:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:09:36 -0600, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
>>
>>> Reminiscent of:
>>>
>>> mov  AX,BX               ; Move the contents of BX into AX
>>
>>
>> That's a *good* comment, because without it most English-speaking 
>> people would assume you were moving the contents of AX into BX.
>>
> [snip]
> If you're reading and/or writing at assembly language level then you
> should know what it does anyway!
> 
> The assembly languages of virtually all the processors that I've come
> across put the destination first, eg. x86:
> 
>     SUB AX,BX
>     MOV AX,BX
> 
> which does:
> 
>     AX := AX - BX
>     AX := BX
> 

A bit off-topic, but there are /two/ main syntaxes for x86 assembly, namely 
Intel syntax (the above syntax, used by MASM, old TASM etc.) and AT&T syntax.


<example>
C:\test> echo int main(){ int x = 42; } >blah.cpp

C:\test> g++ blah.cpp -S -masm=intel

C:\test> type blah.s | find "42"
         mov     DWORD PTR [ebp-4], 42

C:\test> g++ blah.cpp -S -masm=att

C:\test> type blah.s | find "42"
         movl    $42, -4(%ebp)

C:\test> _
</example>


Personally I find the AT&T syntax very hard to read.

All those percent signs hurt my eyes...




> and ARM:
> 
>     SUB R0,R1,R2
>     MOV R0,R1
> 
> which does:
> 
>     R0 := R1 - R2
>     R0 := R1
> 
> The only assembly language I know of which does it the other way round
> is 68x00:
> 
>     SUB D0,D1
>     MOVE D0,D1
> 
> which does:
> 
>     D1 := D1 - D0
>     D1 := D0
> 
> I know which I prefer! :-)

Cheers,

- Alf