Next:Notes on Strcmp Up: Overview Previous: Rex86 Sample - Your Name

Notes on Division

Why is there no DIV instruction?

General division is rarely needed, HALF usually suffices
Students expect division to produce a fraction, not an integer
DIV has two outputs
Division on negative numbers is poorly defined
Has the potential to crash a program by dividing by zero
Division algorithm is a great algorithm

If the instruction is already there, algorithm isn't needed
Teaching the algorithm helps them understand why DIV is hard

Of course this means int to text cannot be done (without writing our own division procedure). That's ok. Text to int will teach much of the same lessons.

Next:Notes on Strcmp Up: Overview Previous: Rex86 Sample - Your Name

by dlong@progmatism.com. Plz don't copy kthx.