How to tell what programming language somthing is written in?

[OliverScott]

How to tell what programming language a file has been written in?

Am being told by a supplier of a hardware testing utility that they use a specially written OS designed to allow accurate hardware testing, and that it is written in assembly language, and this makes it better than competitors packages that run in windows or using DOS or using a linux kernel.

Now think they are telling a few untruths as their bood disk appears to contain severl key FreeDOS elements etc.

If you look at the contents of a file is it possible to tell if it has been written in assembly language?

Their command.com contains:

"Send bug reports to freedos-freecom@lists.sourceforge.net.
Updates are available from http://freedos.sourceforge.net/freecom
The FreeDOS Command Shell developed by many developers, please refer
to the enclosed HISTORY.TXT file.
Currently maintained by Steffen Kaiser mailto:freecom@freedos.org
Send bug reports to freedos-freecom@lists.sourceforge.net.
Updates are available from http://freedos.sourceforge.net/freecom"

Am I right in thinking that it wouldn't look like that if written in assembly, but might if written in C?

From what little I know about programming I would have thought that somthing written in assembly wouldn't contain any human readable elements when opened in notepad...

[rehe]

I think it is pretty clear that they use FreeDos or some of its components as part of their software. This isn't to say they don't have their own components (written in assembly language or something else) in there too. I’d ask them where FreeDos fits in to their own custom OS.

User displayed text strings are often human readable in binary files so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

I'm not a believer in coding assembly unless I absolutely have to. Usually you can code your problem in C in quarter of the time, with half the bugs and 99.9% of the performance, so I don't see why they are claiming it is better.

Rather an believing them when they say it is better because it is written in assembly, I'd ask them why it is better in terms of performance, reliability, features, etc and ask them to back it up, or even better do you own tests.

[OliverScott]

I think it is pretty clear that they use FreeDos or some of its components as part of their software. This isn't to say they don't have their own components (written in assembly language or something else) in there too. I’d ask them where FreeDos fits in to their own custom OS.

User displayed text strings are often human readable in binary files so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

I'm not a believer in coding assembly unless I absolutely have to. Usually you can code your problem in C in quarter of the time, with half the bugs and 99.9% of the performance, so I don't see why they are claiming it is better.

Rather an believing them when they say it is better because it is written in assembly, I'd ask them why it is better in terms of performance, reliability, features, etc and ask them to back it up, or even better do you own tests.

Better in terms that they can carry out more accurate hardware testing than the likes of Memtest86 etc.

Have been carrying out my own tests and so far I am not impresses. For instance you boot from a CD and select an option to create a bootable floppy disk and even if you don't put a floppy disk in the drive it comes up with a message telling you that it has sucessfully created the disk (even my own batch files have better error checking than that). Another example is that the documentation is very out of date in places (some stuff obviously more relevant to a 386 than a P4), and misleading too!

It is very hard to evaluate how well a hardware testing utility works, and in out tests so far it hasn't added anything to the free utilities we were already using. I have to admit to having been convinced to try it by a very good sales woman, as it wasn't somthing I was actually looking at buying!

Given my current doubts I am looking to get a refund (sales person was quite happy to tell us we could have a refund if not satisfied) but I think it could be a challenge so am looking to have some actual evidence that their sales literature is misleading.