And amusingly it's possible to write some significant desktop software, just in ARM assembler.

http://www.cconcepts.co.uk/products/publish.htm http://www.cconcepts.co.uk/products/artworks.htm

Although I wouldn't recommend choosing assembler for a destkop app, but it made sense when they were written. And I still think Impression beats many a word processor and DTP package available today, and it ran in 2MB of memory with no hard disc.

I learned ARM while working on iPhone reversing, and it's certainly nicer, but there are still a ton of considerations. It's much nicer to write, but when reversing it you have to handle so many edge cases it's not even funny. Writing a decompiler for it really drives that home.

Testify!

15 years ago, I did Intel-style assembly--and loved it even with all its clumsiness. But I just dove into ARM a few weeks ago, and am loving it even more. Such sweet pleasure to code so close to such a beautiful and simple machine!

Stack-based machines are even simpler. Too bad Forth didn't took of.