I decided to learn Assembly language. The main reason to do so is being able to understand disassembled code and maybe being able to write more efficient parts of code (for example, through c++), doing somethings like code caves, etc. I saw there are a zillion different flavors of assembly, so, for the purposes I mention, how should I start? What kind of assembly should I learn? I want to learn by first doing some easy programs (i.e. a calculator), but the goal itself will be to get accostumed with it so I can understand the code shown, for example, by IDA Pro.
I'm using windows (if that makes any difference).
edit: So, seems everyone is pointing towards MASM. Although I get the point that it has high level capabilities, all good for the assembly code programmer, that's not what I'm looking for. It seems to have if, invoke, etc instructions not shown in popular deassemblers (like IDA). So what I'd like to hear if possible, is the opinion of anyone that uses ASM for the purposes I am asking (reading deassembled exe's code in IDA), not just "general" assembly programmers.
edit: OK. I am already learning assembly. I am learning MASM, not using the high level stuff that doesn't matter to me. What I'm doing right now is trying out my code on __asm directives in c++, so I can try out things way faster than if I had to do everything from scratch with MASM.