Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> Personally, I think this understanding is so important that I would say 
> *all* programmers should, at one point or another, learn to write 
> complete programs in assembly language, by hand.  Not that they should 
> use machine language for their jobs, but because knowing how computers 
> *really* work will help them write better programs in the long run.

  OTOH, starting too low can lead to what I call the C-hacker syndrome.
(It doesn't have to necessarily be a C coder per se, but the vast majority
of these people are.)

  The "C-hacker" wants to control every single clock cycle his code
requires. He only sees low-level inefficiencies everywhere (and will
often completely overlook the big picture, ie. the *real* bottlenecks).
Often they will fill their code with obfuscated "cool tricks" they have
learned from other C-hacker friends and websites.

  The C-hacker will have a very strong prejudice against higher-level
programming paradigms and languages. Especially object-oriented
programming is the most prominent red flag for the C-hacker. He'll ramble
all day long about how OOP sucks big time. None of his arguments will make
the least amount of sense, though (all of the arguments will be irrelevant,
exaggerated, or in the vast majority of cases, just plain false).

  The C-hacker will have a very strong prejudice against any features
and libraries which work like a "black box", ie. doing things inside
that the C-hacker has no control over. He wants everything to be open
and controlled by him. He prefers writing 5000 lines of code to create
his own (often inefficient and unsafe) implementation of something rather
than using an existing library.

  The C-hacker emphasizes the so-called "hacker optimization", even to
the point where it becomes completely counter-productive. His "hacker
optimized" code will usually be an obfuscated and unmaintainable mess
which nobody can read (not even himself after a year). He has the false
notion that low-level programming, "close to the hardware", somehow
automatically makes the code faster. Quite ironically, in many cases his
"hacker optimized" code will actually be quite inefficient because he's
using the wrong algorithms and data containers for the job.

  The worst trait of the C-hacker is his inability to learn proper
programming principles and techniques. He *fights* against them instead
of wanting to learn them. Resistance to change is deeply ingrained.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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