On 10/17/2011 7:00 AM, m II wrote:
....

No decent code writer would use self-modifying code! This indicates you
have absolutely **NO** experience in this field.
Self-modifying code would violate all the protection traps in any modern
O/S and would error out as a violation.
....

Nonsense!

Gates was _WRITING_ the OS...

You're also not accounting for the time and place and state of hardware
at the time.

Self-modifying code (along w/ a lot of other "tricks") was done in years
gone by to save either memory or execution cycles or to simulate higher
level constructs that weren't yet supported (FORTRAN didn't include a
CALL statement in first releases so writing code to data and executing
it was a way to simulate it) by many. Like any other technique, it can
be (and was on occasion) abused.

But, on its own it certainly doesn't mean those who used it weren't
competent. Granted that w/ current processors, modern OS'es and the
rampant expansion of memory there's little reason for it any longer but
none of those were true then as now.

It's highly likely in the field of tiny embedded systems that are still
memory and cpu-cycle limited that one can find places it has application
even today.

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