Why Learning Assembly Language Is Still a Good Idea. Yes, but assembler for which processor? I would assume the intent of understanding what the computer is doing would imply that, yes, assembly for modern processors ought to be learned, with all the fancy features of the processor's instruction set. I'd bet you could get most of the intended benefits by learning a simpler, older processor. I learned a lot about computers from 6502 assembly, and I wouldn't expect learning newer opcodes for cache management or whatever they have now would be all that useful. Interesting in its own right, perhaps.