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What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) [pdf]

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Re: What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) [pdf]

#2

Post by CalChris »

I wish Ulrich Drepper (thank you, Mr. Drepper) would update this with a section on Row Hammer and also Spectre and Meltdown. Programmer's need to know about memory because of these exploits, more so with the latter two in order avoid creating exploitable gadgets.

But then I also think that What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic should be updated to include UNUMs. I don't think that will happen either. Also, thank you Mr. Goldberg.

Re: What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) [pdf]

#4

Post by twtw »

louthy wrote: post #3

What every programmer should know about memory shouldn't be 114 pages long.

If you are objecting to "every," then sure, not every programmer needs to know anything about memory. You can program without knowing that there is such a thing.

But it's a fun title, and an excellent resource.

Re: What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) [pdf]

#8

Post by saberience »

Is this title and content supposed to be ironic?

I quickly perused the article and I think this link should be renamed "What 99.9% of programmers don't need to know about memory."

I've managed to go from Associate to Principal without knowing 99% of what's covered in this document, and I'm struggling to understand why the average Java, C#, Python, Rust, programmer would need to know about transistor configurations or voltages, pin configurations, etc. Let alone 114 pages of low level hardware diagrams and jargon!

This document is for someone working on low level drivers for memory, or working on the hardware side. For any normal software engineer, this information is not helpful for doing your job.

Re: What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) [pdf]

#9

Post by asaddhamani »

saagarjha wrote: post #6
louthy wrote: post #3

What every programmer should know about memory shouldn't be 114 pages long.

"A bit more than what most programmers need to know about memory, but would be nice if they read anyways"?

A _lot_ more. I don't see how most programmers would benefit from reading 100+ pages of low-level details about memory.

Re: What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) [pdf]

#10

Post by 131012 »

CalChris wrote: post #2

I wish Ulrich Drepper (thank you, Mr. Drepper) would update this with a section on Row Hammer and also Spectre and Meltdown . Programmer's need to know about memory because of these exploits, more so with the latter two in order avoid creating exploitable gadgets. But then I also think that What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic should be updated to include UNUMs. I don't think that…

Thanks for bringing that up, I came to the comments section to see if some other details were outdated. Any other insights?
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