By whygee on Wednesday 18 February 2009, 23:22 - JavaScript

This time, it's all about JavaScript. The preliminary version is available
from http://yasep.org/~whygee/listed/listed.html

What is it really ? It's an interactive assembler in dynamic HTML, loaded with JavaScript and CSS stuff. It's also an interface to the JavaScript assembler and the simulator.

• The little windowing system allows one to break a whole program into small chunks, that are easier to manage. Assembly langage listings can easily get messy, but local symbols and hideable sections reduce the usual clutter on one's window/screen.

• As the user edits each line, the modifications are committed to the rest of the page : the instructions are re-assembled, the labels are updated where they are used, the simulator can reinterpret the sequence and give preliminary results for given testcases...

• The assembler is not limited to YASEP : the CPU interface is going to be generic, and LISTED could support any CPU that can be described in JavaScript (that means : all, provided enough adaptations are coded). A dummy, overly simple and dumb CPU architecture will be given as an example, so somebody can easily adapt it for x86, PIC, Alpha, MIPS, POWER, or RCA1802 ...

• This is going to be linked directly with ARF, which is another graphic coding interface.

I have been working on this for more than 3 weeks and a lot of work still remains. I focus on user comfort and UI design but I keep flexibility and expandability in mind. For example, I have developped YGWM to handle the
windowing part, which will be reused by the whole yasep.org website. The
assembler and simulator will remain completely decoupled.

In the end, it only confirms what I believed for some time : JavaScript is a fantastic opportunity for really new ideas, it provides portability and rapid design. However, after trying to make it compatible with different browsers, my strong recommendation is : use Firefox and stick to it

Oh yes, LISTED was a great tool that needs to be rebuilt :-) But first I need to reboot YGWM, which has its own website now...