Regardless of whether you actually USE it in the
project,
if you do not have an understanding of machine language,
then you can not write a good "driver", or anything else
that directly addresses hardware.
I ask then - how much code today is being written in machine language? One
percent? A tenth of a percent? C may be a pain in the neck, but it is used
in all sorts of places* where machine language was king.
In any case, if we are talking about less than a percent, I think that
would be a "specialty".
*yes, I know about code that has to be very efficient.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org