What are good or interesting Assembler-like languages, but at a higher level?

Question

I've been looking at L.in.oleum and am intrigued by it's mix of higher-level constructs (loops, dynamic variables) with low-level assembler power (registers).

Are there other languages like Lino out there, which blend the speed of assembler with productivity enhancing features?

EDIT: I realized this kind of sounds like an ad. I'm genuinely interested in other assembler-like languages, Lino is just the only one I happen to know of.

Answer 1

Most C compilers that accept inline assembly. Of course, the assembly-optimized parts aren't cross-architecure, but I can't really imagine a cross-architecture assembly language that would be that effective anyway. I'll look into linoleum, but with optimizing compilers and vastly different platforms, with anywhere from 4 to hundreds of registers, I really can't see this working very well.

Another option is C#/Java and their bytecode. But I'd still question the usefulness of hand-optimizing in those.

Answer 2

You might want to look at LLVM. It's pseudo-assmbler might be similar to what you've got in mind

Answer 3

You could try directly using LLVM.

Since there are many tools already available that create/transform it you stand a good chance of being able to make something useul with it (albeit with no ide support).

If you are stuck just write what you want in C++ then compile it with Clang keeping the intermediate form.

For a quick indication of whether you might like it try their online compiler

Answer 4

High Level Assembly might also be interesting.

Answer 5

Win32 in assembler: basically the windows headers for assembler with some nice high-level macros:

http://www.masm32.com/

Answer 6

C-- is an intermediate language designed to be generated mainly by compilers, is somewhere between C and assembler

Answer 7

The System z has HLASM which we use for quite a bit of development. It adds all sorts of higher-level-language constructs. As well as HLASM bringing assembly up a bit towards a high-level language, I believe IBM have an internal product based on PL/I which brings C down a bit towards assembly :-)

Answer 8

I once used PL/M and it seemed to me to be just one level above assembly. It was more like a macro language but with some higher level constructs like loops and such. It was an interesting experience.

Answer 9

FORTH - not quite assembler but it is used heavily and is very low level.

Answer 10

LLVM is a good answer.

Some other interesting languages are the JVM bytecode and MSIL (the .Net platform bytecode). Both provide stackbased systems, which is a large difference from x86 assembly.