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Assembly Language Step-by-step: Programming with DOS and Linux (with CD-ROM) Review by MrBeercan
THIS BOOK SHOULD BE TITLE "PRE-ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE" !!!
This book is a MUST for anyone taking Assembly Language in a computer science class. Most books on assembly language leave out some VERY important information. Most programming languages are basically the same and require the same logic to use. There is a an important difference between assembly language and other languages like C or Java.
Just like a procedural language like C and an object-oriented languages like C++ or Small Talk requires a difference thought process, so does Assembly Language versus C++ or C#. Jeff does a masterful and humorous job of bridging that gap.
This book shouldn't be titled "Assembly Language Step by Step" it should be called "Pre-Assembly Language." The book actually teaches very little Assembly Language, instead, it teaches foundational corner stones such as memory models, CPU function, memory access, binary and hexadecimal numbering systems, and registers. These things are generally glossed over in most text books, yet end up being the most important part. Jeff realized this flaw in other books and wrote this classic. The time to get this book is a semester BEFORE you take a class in Assembly Language, THEN that class in Assembly Language will make more sense. Especially if your going to learn Assembly Language on Intel's 80x86 architecture.
If you're going to learn MIPS or RISC processor assembly language, I'd still recommend Jeff's book. But, I'd also get "SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, & C" by Richard P. Paul. Richard does a great job like Jeff, but orients his text toward RISC computers.
I HAVE A COUPLE OF WARNINGS: Jeff recommends "Mastering Turbo Assembler" by Tom Swan as the next step. This recommendation is seriously out of date. You can't by Borland Turbo-Assembler new anymore, and the book deals with mostly 16-bit code. Instead, you should get "Assembly Language for Intel-Based Computers" by Kip Irving. This text is up to date with 32-bit code.
Jeff also recommends a book by Michael Abrash. Though Mike's "Black Book" was a great text, it's out of date. I'd recommend that instead you buy "Code Optimization: Effective Memory Usage" by Kris Kaspersky since it's more up to date..
IMPORTANT TO PURCHASERS: Jeff's book "Assembly Language Step by Step" comes with a disk with NASM and programs examples. Unfortunately, they're "READ-ONLY" when you copy them from the disk to the hard drive. You have to change the attribute on every single file to get the program to work. Still NASM and the NASM-IDE are a great addition to the book. If you remove the "READ-ONLY" attribute, you should have no problem.
I hope Jeff will come out with a Third edition to this classic. "Assembly Language Step by Step" should be required as a prerequisite to any Assembly Language class.