If you work as a software professional, you may have to support 10 different products using 5 different processor architectures. Some may have 8-pin microcontrollers with a couple of hundred bytes of flash. Some may run a full Linux system. With a full-blown GNU/Linux system on a PPC, you don't spend the time learning to code in assembler unless you have a strong reason to. On the 8-pin processor, you made the processor choice with the intention that nothing but assembler would be used.

Never make life so easy as assuming that assembler knowledge for a specific processor is a requirement to be a competent programmer. That just means that you have focused too narrowly on details.


I strongly disagree with this opinion. I have done quite a lot of projects in quite a number of fields. With your view, I would have to politely refuse helping with a very large number of questions.

Any competent receiver would gain quite a lot from receiving knowledgeable hints. A big part of development is to recognize the bad solutions, and avoid them. Giving someone the hint that "what would happen if xx happens", can help someone to avoid falling into a deep pit, while at the same time helping them analyzing a problem and building the required knowledge to be able to find a solution on their own.

When you were in school, the teacher didn't walk to each student and said that the answer to the math problem was 17. He/she instead pointed at a part of your equation and noted that you had an incorrect sign, or where doing an incorrect simplification. You don't gain knowledge without own work. And in the end, you do need that knowledge. The alternative to getting that knowledge is to be a buyer and pay for solutions. But even a buyer needs knowledge - without knowledge, you will not kwow what you buy or if the price is good or bad.