Today, a student left a message: “Now that STM32 and ESP32 are so powerful, why are universities still teaching the outdated 51 microcontroller and the difficult-to-understand assembly language? Isn’t this a waste of time? Today, I will share my thoughts.
If we look solely from the perspective of technological trends, the 51 and assembly seem a bit “outdated”, but it is important to note that the 51 here refers more to the 89 series of microcontrollers. However, if we consider the essence of learning in universities, which is to impart principles and shape thinking, it makes a lot of sense.
1. The Goal is to Understand Principles
One of the core goals of university education is to teach the fundamental, core, and unchanging principles, not to chase the latest and flashiest technologies. Technologies will iterate; frameworks that are popular today may be obsolete in a few years. However, it is essential to understand how computers work, how the CPU executes instructions, and how memory is accessed; these foundational knowledge have not changed for decades.
Although the 51 microcontroller has limited performance, it has an irreplaceable advantage in its simplicity and transparency. With a simple structure, few peripherals, and a limited number of registers, it actually becomes an advantage for beginners. This makes it easy to understand how a program runs on the chip, how to configure registers, and how to control pin levels. Students can avoid being distracted by complex hardware functions and see through the essence of the microcontroller: the program is just a series of commands that control registers through the bus to make the hardware operate. With a solid foundation, whether learning ARM or RISC-V, they can easily relate to it.
Modern microcontrollers can have hundreds of pins, complex peripheral modules, and large register sets. When students face these chips as beginners, they sometimes can only rely on library functions and examples, like driving in autopilot mode, completely unaware of what is happening at the lower level.
2. Assembly Language
Assembly language is indeed difficult, and it is rarely used directly in actual development. However, it can be said to be the best way to train hardware thinking, allowing students to understand how computers work. Assembly language reveals the truth behind high-level languages. Once students understand how eachC statement is transformed into machine instructions, the code they write will be more efficient. Learning assembly naturally leads to considerations of memory allocation, register usage, execution efficiency, and other issues, which are particularly important for embedded development. When faced with extreme and difficult problems, sometimes checking the disassembled code is the only solution, and those who understand assembly have an advantage at such times.
When programming inC, you are communicating with the compiler, while with assembly language, you are speaking directly to the CPU.
3. From Knowing That to Knowing Why
Universities do not teach students how to use a specific popular chip, but rather aim to help students understand the basic laws of the entire discipline. Students can understand software from a hardware perspective and vice versa, establishing a complete system view.
With this foundation, after graduation, students can quickly adapt to any model of microcontroller or development environment, diving deep into the lower levels and solving problems. This transferable ability is the most valuable gift.
As someone who has been through this, I deeply realize that this seemingly “outdated” learning experience is the most valuable foundation and wealth in my career and teaching. It allows me to remain calm when facing any new microcontroller because I understand their common core secrets. If you are currently learning, please take a moment to reflect, because what it gives you is the ability to solve problems, not just knowledge itself.