HLA file sizes....

Ok, I'm currently learning how to use HLA (High Level Assembly) which is pretty nifty and all but I was fooling around and found that a program made by HLA is uber-huge compared to the same thing just made in straight up assembly and compiled with NASM. Is this because it uses GAS and GAS does that naturally (I've never messed with GAS) or is it all HLA's fault?

I think you misunderstand the entire concept of HLA, LLA, GAS, TASM, and all the other letters. HLA is high level assembler which has very little to do with GAS. HLA was written as an alternative to other assemblers such as GAS and TASM, to encourage people to write more readable code. The very point of it is to offer assembly language but that appears more like higher level language (while it's not), thus appearing somewhat imperative.
As for the large filesize, I would presume this is because while it is HIGH Level Assembler it is still assembly, thus any macro's, etc used are converted and translated to standard assembly code. This means the executable must be larger, as it is required to contain enough information to be able to create "real" assembly language.

Hope this helps shed some light

I'm pretty sure that HLA just turns your code into assembly code and then calls GAS (on linux) to assemble it. But I get what you mean about the macros and such.

It shares some similiarities to MASM. Read the FAQ and it mentions the difference, and touches upon reasons for file size difference.