--- title: April 21, 2026 | daily.dev description: A brief exploration of why the XOR instruction became the dominant idiom for zeroing a register in x86 assembly, rather than the SUB instruction, even though... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/april-21-2026-rmc2oscfw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: April 21, 2026 | daily.dev og:description: A brief exploration of why the XOR instruction became the dominant idiom for zeroing a register in x86 assembly, rather than the SUB instruction, even though... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/april-21-2026-rmc2oscfw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/rMC2osCFW.png og:image:alt: April 21, 2026 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # April 21, 2026 **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A brief exploration of why the XOR instruction became the dominant idiom for zeroing a register in x86 assembly, rather than the SUB instruction, even though both achieve the same result. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [September 10, 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/september-10-2026-gn9tje8mw) · The Old New Thing · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Too much Discussion of the XOR swap trick – Heather Cafe](https://daily.dev/posts/too-much-discussion-of-the-xor-swap-trick-heather-cafe-7zbqi1yr9) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/april-21-2026-rmc2oscfw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"April 21, 2026","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/april-21-2026-rmc2oscfw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/april-21-2026-rmc2oscfw"},"datePublished":"2026-04-22T13:24:29.522Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T13:24:44.840Z","description":"A brief exploration of why the XOR instruction became the dominant idiom for zeroing a register in x86 assembly, rather than the SUB instruction, even though...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ZrL_HSsR--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2006","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--ZrL_HSsR--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2006","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/april-21-2026-rmc2oscfw","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"","timeRequired":"PT1M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"April 21, 2026"}]} ```