Comment Teaching Assembly (Score 1) 1328
At work about twenty years ago (I was a EE for a power utility), I taught myself basic 360 assembly by writing a Forth interpreter (I had to have a goal before I could learn anything). Six months later, a local business oriented community college got my name during its search for someone to teach an evening class in 360 assembly to some Cobol programmers at a bank. This conversation followed:
Q. When does the class start?
A. Tuesday. (it was Thursday).
Q. What textbook are you using?
A. What textbook would you like to use?
Always ready to accept what I didn't have sense enough to avoid, I took the job. I selected a textbook from the local university, wrote a syllabus and grading plan and I was as ready as I was going to get in five days. I figured that anyone willing to work with JCL would have no problem with assembly, but just in case, I had a plan for motivating people to cherish assembly language programming.
During the first half of our three hour class I taught machine code, and hinted as we went to break that by the end of the semester we would know 160 op codes. After that, assembly was a god-send.
Q. When does the class start?
A. Tuesday. (it was Thursday).
Q. What textbook are you using?
A. What textbook would you like to use?
Always ready to accept what I didn't have sense enough to avoid, I took the job. I selected a textbook from the local university, wrote a syllabus and grading plan and I was as ready as I was going to get in five days. I figured that anyone willing to work with JCL would have no problem with assembly, but just in case, I had a plan for motivating people to cherish assembly language programming.
During the first half of our three hour class I taught machine code, and hinted as we went to break that by the end of the semester we would know 160 op codes. After that, assembly was a god-send.
