New & newbie, Greetings.

[ADHS]

Greetings to all.
I am new here and almost newbie in asssembly also.
Limited assembly experience in Amiga 68000 and enough of Pascal in Delphi.

As a newbie, can you suggest me an IDE to start digging?
Thank you.

PS: This antispam check, will be always a requirement in my every forum action?

[encryptor256]

Hi, ADHS!

You need to specify your OS, then someone might suggest some IDE's.

On Windows, i have tested:

• PSPad - editor for developers for Microsoft Windows systems
• ScITE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor.
• Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.

My favourite is PsPad, for now.
ScITE is also very nice.
Notepad++ didn't worked, like i wanted.

PS: This antispam check, will be always a requirement in my every forum action?

No - AntiSpam WILL BE turned off, after you make few more posts.

Bye, Encryptor256!!!

[ADHS]

Hi encryptor256 and
thank you very much for your reply and for the informations.
 , yes i forgot to specify my system: (till now), is Windows.
As i can see, most assembly programers prefer just a text editor.
I just had in mind something similar to RadASM, but i think that i
have to reconsider and/or leave behind the "visual" enviroment
and start from scratch. There are too many scratches to start
with assembly for me  . Thank you!

[avcaballero]

Hello, for programming i usually use ConTEXT editor. It has several buttons to executing tasks such as compiling, linking, etc. Sintax hihglight, etc. You can see a shot here and a few descriptions to customize it.

[ADHS]

avcaballero,
hello and thank you very much for your reply-suggestion.
I think i've got my 1st goal with NASM while learning and
practising with it: an IDE for NASM.
Off course it will take me time, but step-by-step routines
while learning, will become additions to it till reaches a user
working form.
Thank you.

[Bryant Keller]

yes i forgot to specify my system: (till now), is Windows.
As i can see, most assembly programers prefer just a text editor.
I just had in mind something similar to RadASM, but i think that i
have to reconsider and/or leave behind the "visual" enviroment
and start from scratch.

Why would you begin limiting yourself of features just because you're programming in Assembly? RadASM is an absolutely great IDE if you are only going to be working on Windows. One of the main reasons I used it under Windows was because it had integrated support for resource management (icons, bitmaps, dialogs, etc.) which fit well within the IDE itself. Another reason is that, once you start working on larger projects, the ability to collapse sections of your code means that you can isolate the parts that you are working on and you are less likely to get lost in the forest of instructions. And if you decide to get really low level and do some bytecode level optimizations, the IDE has a built-in hex editor.

This brings up a common bit of confusion about me, many people have asked me over the years why (since NASM is my preferred assembler) I choose to use GoASM under Windows? The reason here is IDE support. I quit using RadASM/NASM for Windows development after a couple of years because something (IMO) better came along. Raymon Sala developed an absolutely amazing IDE for Windows assembly development, unfortunately it only supports MASM and GoASM. It's actually good enough that I'm willing to use an alternative assembler! Even though I recommend, as a newbie, you stick to RadASM until you become skilled at assembly itself. Once you get into developing larger graphical applications and you truly begin to need Rapid Application Development you should totally take a look at Easy Code Visual Assembly IDE (And coming from a Pascal/Delphi background, you'll absolutely love it).

Ironically, the reverse is actually true on Linux based platforms, the best "IDE" there is always going to be the most simple editor. I use VIM with NASM because the language is supported internally (sometimes you need to update .vimrc to make NASM the default though), it supports collapsible code sections (like RadASM) and I rarely have to take my hands off the keyboard to touch the mouse which saves me a lot of time. On linux, I don't need integrated debugging because almost every Linux system has GDB. VIM integrates well with the Make utility so that errors reported from your programs immediately update the cursor location and you can use :cnext and :cprev to move from error to error. That's a must with almost any programming editor IMHO.

Of course, what it really boils down to is personal preference. Try out as many as you can, and rather than getting into the mentality of limiting yourself, find an IDE that provides you with the most features that you'll actually use.

Best Regards,
Bryant Keller

[ADHS]

Bryant Keller,
thank you very much for your reply and your suggestions, that
honestly, i appreciate a lot. Because you give me directions
to get involve in assembly for good and then, as an experient
user, to choose one. It's true, then i will be able to choose.
In my case now, the correct word is that i "found" not "choose".

I believe that CPU manuals and documentation are the best place
for me to start reading so to know what or how a thought of mine
can be done or cannot be done at all. And then to choose a tool.

Before i found NASM to start with, i found informations for the
other most known assemblers (masm32). I saw their syntax, what
their requirements and their limitations are, their functions,
their support (tutorials-documentation) and also the threads
in their forums. Then, i decided to use NASM becuase it expands
beyond windows (Linux) and it's syntax seems more familiar to
me to understand whats going on.
Saddly, recent RadASM-3.0.0.9c no longer supports NASM but i
found some older versions that i can try. Sure there are other
supported assemblers to use with it, but each one has it's own
syntax, using others or it's custom libraries-functions and this
was what as a newbie has confused me a lot.

While i am using a visual enviroment indeed just a text editor
to work with is not what i would like. I need with 2 clicks to
bring into view and parametrize a dialog, a groupbox, a label
or a button and then to pass control-parameters to setup the
programm's flow. Sure the just text enviroment for a programmer
has it's own magic, i mean to bring everything into life without
using even the mouse, just using your knowliedge and experience.
A visual enviroment helps a lot (less effort-time) but from the
other point of view, it hides a lot of knowliedge under the every
click action.
From my point of view (right now) i need to have an interface that
will help me to learn-start-try-see what this and what that do:
Here is a screenshot of my attempt for an IDE-for-NASM project. (Attachment)
It's in Delphi also just to have a picture for NASM, but now i am
working to set it in a form that it will be fully customizeable by
the user so to set whatever assemblers-linkers he likes to use
without strict limitations in specific assemblers-linkers.)
(Depending of my progress, it will be replaced step-by-step in assembly).

Again, thank you very much Bryant.

[Gunner]

I am a long, long, long time user of RadASM, and just because it doesn't support something "out of the box" does not mean there is no support!!!  You need to modify one of the other Assembler settings for use with NASM.  You need a nasm.ini file in the root directory, modify the Assembler section in RasASM.ini to add Nasm as an Assembler in the New project dialog, and modify anything else you see fit.

Since I program for both Linux and Windows now, I use an editor/ide that works on both OS's - Geany.  Take a look at it, it is powerful and works well.

[Bryant Keller]

I find it odd that RadASM no longer supports NASM out of box, it used too..  Seems odd considering KetilO took the time to update support for TASM which is pretty much defunct. I've downloaded RadASM and installed Wine on my Linux computer. I'll write a .ini for you when I get a little more time.

[ADHS]

I'll write a .ini for you when I get a little more time.

I have already tried to setup an ini file for NASM (based in an older version of radasm)
but it didn't allow me to use it. All the .ini format has changed and there is a help file
that exlains the new form. I think there is a limitation already inside radasm's code,
but if you have results with your .ini, i'll be gratefull to you if you can share it.

[Bryant Keller]

I have already tried to setup an ini file for NASM (based in an older version of radasm)
but it didn't allow me to use it. All the .ini format has changed and there is a help file
that exlains the new form.

Yeah, KetilO changes things from time to time and I've not actually been a regular user of RadASM since v1.x versions. The new form isn't horribly different.

I think there is a limitation already inside radasm's code,
but if you have results with your .ini, i'll be gratefull to you if you can share it.

I totally spaced out on this one. I completely forgot to write up an INI for you. So I did it just now. This doesn't have a whole lot of features, unfortunately, it seems that RadASM is using the "%" character internally so it doesn't support many of the traditional code blocks. I was able to get it to ignore % when attached to a keyword so it still provides syntax highlighting for many of those, but it's not a great fix.

Anyways, the Nasm.ini and the Nasm folder are included in the attachment. You'll need to modify RadASM.ini, search for the line that says "Assembler=" and add "Nasm" to the list. From there, it should work. If you use the NASMX package, I was able to get a lot of it's features added to this INI, so this is still useful to have around.

[ADHS]

Bryant Keller,
thank you very much for your effort to do this for me.