5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Assembly Language | Limitations & Benefits of Assembly Language

Assembly Language is a low level programming language that works as a middleware between humans and machine language. It works by making communications with the hardware resources directly (Mainly to acquire the knowledge on memory and processor functionalities). The chip manufacturer's specify instructions. 

All the codes in assembly language is written using a short code known as Mnemonic. These codes can be easily understood by the humans. However, humans cannot understand assembly language directly. For this purpose, assembler is used to convert it into machine language. Depending on the way how the assembler generates the code, there are two types of assemblers known as single-pass assembler and multi-pass assembler. 

Assembly language no exception to other languages when it comes to flaws. Due to the fact that it fails to fulfill modern requirements, assembly language is not in use anymore. Assembly language is still ideal for certain tasks but definitely it has shortcomings. Now let's take a look at what made programmers stick with assembly language and deny it as well.

In this article, let's look at the 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Assembly Language | Limitations & Benefits of Assembly Language. From this post, you will know the pros and cons of using assembly language.

Let's get started,

Advantages of Assembly Language

1. Speed

Generally, Assembly language is faster in speed. It takes less time to execute programs because the number of lines are reduced. This is crucial for both kernel programming and hardware driver installation.  Another factor which contributes for the execution speed is the optimized usage of resources. Assembly language does not use all of the resources. Only resources that are needed for the program execution are utilized.

2. Simplicity

The execution of programs in assembly language is made simpler. Even for complex tasks. At the same time, the codes written in assembly language is much easy to understand than machine language. The codes are human readable. 

3. Memory Efficiency

Memory consumption of an application is drastically reduced in assembly language. Instructions given by the assembly language is recognized by the processor. As a result, applications require less memory. Another reason for the memory efficiency is the usage of registers. All the data stored in the registers can be retrieved easily.

4. Flexibility

The codes written in assembly language is smaller. Consequently, faster in executing operations. This is much needed feature for tasks that require high speed of processing. In addition to that, assembly language is flexible in terms of instructions. If an instruction does not seem to fulfill requirements, the developers have the option to choose another.

5. Hardware Management

Assembly language is more hardware oriented. With assembly language, developers can directly manipulate and access hardware. Overall, it provides better control over hardware operations which machine language fails to achieve.

Disadvantages of Assembly Language

1. Learning Curve

Every programming language is assigned with rules which forms its structure known as the syntax. The syntax used in assembly language is more complicated than other high level languages. Because of the complex syntax, many new developers find it difficult to learn them. 

2. Complexity

This programming language creates confusion among developers due to their excessive line of coding. Each code structure is divided as stack, data, code and extra segment. A developer cannot simply begin writing a code. They must know the know the functionality of the hardware.

3. Time Consumption

Not all the time you can use high level languages. Some high level languages face compatibility issues with the hardware which force you to learn assembly language. Unfortunately, the process of learning assembly language requires you to invest lots of time and energy. Apart from that, the codes must be written with great attention. If not, the hardware will fail to perform allocated functions.

4. Portability

Codes written for one microprocessor will not work on the other. This is because each assembler is assigned with a unique assembly language. Thus, they differ according to the computer architecture. Without rewriting, it is not possible to run the code on other machines.

5. Algorithm Design

The designing of algorithms in assembly language is very much limited. In situations of altering the algorithm design, there is a chance for the assembly code to be nullified. So they can end up writing entire code from the scratch.