any way asm people could contribute?

[iam at sdf.org]

> From owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org Mon Feb 11 05:26:03 2019
> From: iam at sdf.org
> To: bjb at sourcerer.ca, freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: any way asm people could contribute?
>
> > From owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org Sun Feb 10 22:46:50 2019
> > From: "Brenda J. Butler" <bjb at sourcerer.ca>
> > To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Subject: Re: any way asm people could contribute?
> >
> > On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 04:35:03PM -0500, John Levine wrote:
> > > In article <U-T5V9GBTMH0X4T_hYmtSc4B19QRNPzkirSo_g45l-czdcQaEvhYekzafkZcQOM_Nb9IQ6Qx3EXEQ-aeRrDJkPrqMnQky88TZZlDfr9iTGA=@protonmail.ch> you write:
> > > >If anyone can give more precise information about how to
> > > >contribute in assembly language, I would find it interesting too.
> > > 
> > > I think there are a few libraries that have optional assembly language
> > > versions of speed critical parts.  But in general I agree with you
> > > that drivers are the place to look.
> > > 
> > > Keep in mind that every different architecture has its own assembly
> > > language, so if you've fixed a driver in i386 assembler, there's
> > > probably another version in amd64 assembler and possibly in the
> > > various powerpc and arm assemblers.
> >
> > There are assembly bits in valgrind, you could also look in
> > libc and equivalents, also the other tools like strace, ld, etc.
> >
> > Compilers might have some parts in assembly (gcc, clang, etc).
> >
> > I don't know of any project that is largely in assembly - the only
> > ones I know of are mainly C with some small bits in assembly.
> > So could be a steep learning curve learning the intricacies of
> > the thing in which the assembly is embedded (so to speak).
> >
> > Maybe also look for embedded type projects, or non-usual
> > architectures.  Maybe also libm, data science, graphics libraries -
> > places where there are cpu-intensive operations that need
> > optimization.  What about the projects that run on graphics
> > processors (boinc project or other distributed/crowd computing
> > for example).  Bitcoin mining (might run on dedicated ASICs).
> >
> > I would be interested to hear if you find something interesting
> > to work on.
> >
> > bjb
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> i am currently learning x86 assembly and will
> be going further on to x86_64 assembly soon.
> i think i will focus on the x86_64 platform
> only and work at improving support for more
> modern x86_64 extensions like avx, avx2,
> avx-512, simd and others as they come along.
> for the same, i have looked into a the method
> employed by the solaris linker loader due to
> which a single binary can have multiple
> capabilities as per the capabilities offered
> by the processor. this i believe is a much
> better approach than having compile time
> binary generation which leads to multiple
> binaries floating around.
> i think, as i get better as assembly, i'll
> look into improving the freebsd linker loader
> and then later work on a newer assembler for
> x86_64.
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>

i read about the solaris linker load magic
from a post on this mailing list, please
see the url at;
https://lethargy.org/~jesus/writes/sunw_cap-arcana/
it is quite a fascinating read.