Skip to main content
Computer Science

Return to Answer

Bounty Ended with 100 reputation awarded by CommunityBot
I never wrote in assembly language but as I understand labels and assembler directives are usually more common than code comments (if these are at all comments).
Source Link
edit approved Nov 13, 2019 at 19:46
user109446
edit approved Nov 13, 2019 at 19:46
user109446

The two most obvious characteristics of an assembly language are:

  1. It is specific to a particular CPU architecture.
  2. There is a one-to-one correspondence between assembly language commands and machine code instructions (once you strip out comments, labels and, assembler directives and code comments).

By contrast, a high-level language will have the following characteristics:

  1. It is portable to some degree i.e. it can be compiled to run on several different target platforms.
  2. It provides a layer of abstraction (control structures and data structures) which allows the programmer to ignore the low-level details of the target platform. As a result, there is no longer a simple one-to-one correspondence between language commands and machine code instructions.

However, this is not a black-or-white distinction; there is a grey area where low-level and high-level languages overlap. For example, cross assemblers take assembly language written for one platform and translate it into machine code that can run on a different platform (usually with some restrictions). And there are assemblers (sometimes called "high level" assemblers) that support simple control structures such as IF structures and FOR loops.

The two most obvious characteristics of an assembly language are:

  1. It is specific to a particular CPU architecture.
  2. There is a one-to-one correspondence between assembly language commands and machine code instructions (once you strip out comments, labels and assembler directives).

By contrast, a high-level language will have the following characteristics:

  1. It is portable to some degree i.e. it can be compiled to run on several different target platforms.
  2. It provides a layer of abstraction (control structures and data structures) which allows the programmer to ignore the low-level details of the target platform. As a result, there is no longer a simple one-to-one correspondence between language commands and machine code instructions.

However, this is not a black-or-white distinction; there is a grey area where low-level and high-level languages overlap. For example, cross assemblers take assembly language written for one platform and translate it into machine code that can run on a different platform (usually with some restrictions). And there are assemblers (sometimes called "high level" assemblers) that support simple control structures such as IF structures and FOR loops.

The two most obvious characteristics of an assembly language are:

  1. It is specific to a particular CPU architecture.
  2. There is a one-to-one correspondence between assembly language commands and machine code instructions (once you strip out labels, assembler directives and code comments).

By contrast, a high-level language will have the following characteristics:

  1. It is portable to some degree i.e. it can be compiled to run on several different target platforms.
  2. It provides a layer of abstraction (control structures and data structures) which allows the programmer to ignore the low-level details of the target platform. As a result, there is no longer a simple one-to-one correspondence between language commands and machine code instructions.

However, this is not a black-or-white distinction; there is a grey area where low-level and high-level languages overlap. For example, cross assemblers take assembly language written for one platform and translate it into machine code that can run on a different platform (usually with some restrictions). And there are assemblers (sometimes called "high level" assemblers) that support simple control structures such as IF structures and FOR loops.

Source Link
gandalf61
gandalf61
  • 1.6k
  • 5
  • 11

The two most obvious characteristics of an assembly language are:

  1. It is specific to a particular CPU architecture.
  2. There is a one-to-one correspondence between assembly language commands and machine code instructions (once you strip out comments, labels and assembler directives).

By contrast, a high-level language will have the following characteristics:

  1. It is portable to some degree i.e. it can be compiled to run on several different target platforms.
  2. It provides a layer of abstraction (control structures and data structures) which allows the programmer to ignore the low-level details of the target platform. As a result, there is no longer a simple one-to-one correspondence between language commands and machine code instructions.

However, this is not a black-or-white distinction; there is a grey area where low-level and high-level languages overlap. For example, cross assemblers take assembly language written for one platform and translate it into machine code that can run on a different platform (usually with some restrictions). And there are assemblers (sometimes called "high level" assemblers) that support simple control structures such as IF structures and FOR loops.