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“Code” 2nd Edition

charlespetzold.com

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Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#101

Post by jrmg »

pbourke wrote: post #89
jrmg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wonder: for someone with no understanding of how computers work; no idea about electricity and transistors, no idea about CPUs executing instructions, no idea about software and abstraction: what do they think about when they click a ‘play’ button in a music player, and the interface updates and music starts? Do they think about what is happening ‘inside’ the box? I think I do. I suspect I have a completely d…

> I find it hard to imagine how they must see the modern world. It must seem like magic! I think this is unnecessarily infantilizing. There are a great many very complex things in the modern world, and people must employ abstractions for most of it. I think with the rise of multi form factor computing, there is more basic literacy about the nature of computers these days. People don’t think that a phone god makes the…

I said ‘like magic’. I know they know they’re made by humans and understandable with effort.

Complex chemistry and materials engineering feels ‘like magic’ to me. I know I could understand it with enough effort - but I don’t understand it now. I’m sure my view of everyday things would change if I did.

Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#102

Post by sixstringtheory »

unwind wrote: post #22
scop wrote: post #10

This book was absolutely essential when I was first sinking my teeth into software programming. Things that seemed either arbitrary or completely mysterious suddenly made sense now that I had a contextual understanding of how computers worked . Without having that knowledge, I think my career would have been vastly more difficult and frustrating. While I understand many “get started programming” books/tutorials put a…

Uh, as someone with too many years of programming behind me to imagine that, can you mention some concrete things that you found arbitrary or completely mysterious, and that the booked cleared up for you? Thanks.

I didn’t discover it until after coding for over 20 years and getting a masters in cs, and I really enjoyed it for filling in some gaps in my knowledge of the engineering side of things and the historical treatment of how various things came to be. And it was a great review of all the stuff I did already know from formal training and experience. It was a quick and easy read, even after tracing through every schematic, so I found it very enjoyable.

Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#103

Post by sixstringtheory »

marai2 wrote: post #97
LordDragonfang wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell whether I had an unusually good CS education, or if I'm missing something, but everything I see discussed in this thread as crucial insights taken from this book are things I recall being covered at least once in university, yeah. Perhaps it's just especially effective in its organization and ordering of fundamentals. Still, the praise it's getting makes me want to pick up a copy just to see if it can fi…

I think the difference is that this book in about 200 pages or so, starts from two boys using flashlights to attempt to "communicate" with each and goes through simple circuits to logic gates to CPU, ALU, volatile memory, rudiments of assembly language to a high level language. That's the difference, hand holding you through the explanations with the emphasis on pedagogy rather than being a dry theory book.

Yes, it consolidates a ton of information very well. I think it can appeal both to the beginner/layperson as introductory, or to those with more experience to put lots of pieces together. I didn’t learn much new information but it tied together many things, and just reviewing and recalling old theory felt like a good exercise.

Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#105

Post by azov »

jrmg wrote: post #68
unwind wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, as someone with too many years of programming behind me to imagine that, can you mention some concrete things that you found arbitrary or completely mysterious, and that the booked cleared up for you? Thanks.

I often wonder: for someone with no understanding of how computers work; no idea about electricity and transistors, no idea about CPUs executing instructions, no idea about software and abstraction: what do they think about when they click a ‘play’ button in a music player, and the interface updates and music starts? Do they think about what is happening ‘inside’ the box? I think I do. I suspect I have a completely d…

What's your mental model of a dog?.. What's happening inside when he barks or wags his tail? Why does he like carrots more than cheese? How does his memory work?..

The way you think of dogs is probably not very different from the way many people think of computers.

Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#106

Post by nurettin »

WalterBright wrote: post #87

I suppose I came to understanding programming in an unusual way. I first knew a bit of BASIC and could write simple programs in it, how the computer actually worked was a baffling mystery. My first semester in college, I took a class in semiconductor physics. That started with the PN junction, to diodes, to transistors, to gates, to flip-flops, to clocking, to registers, adders, etc. Later on, this made learning micr…

I learned it the hard way as well. I think my book was "computer architecture" by Morris & Mano you start from PN to logic gates to truth tables to carnough diagrams to writing your own adder to D transistors to memory to bus to clock to cpu to write your own assembly to perform machine instructions.

Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#107

Post by yumaikas »

The first edition of this book was my introduction into how computers worked at a lower level. It gave me enough of a grounding in various concepts that I was able to understand much of a Digital Systems class.

It also partly inspired my first efforts at building a scientific calculator (which would never be quite finished).

I definitely recommend it for folks who want to build context on the lower levels of computers, as a start into understanding CPUs, binary/hex, and other parts of how we tricked sand into thinking with lighting.

Re: “Code” 2nd Edition

#109

Post by CamperBob2 »

thoms_a wrote: post #100
jrmg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wonder: for someone with no understanding of how computers work; no idea about electricity and transistors, no idea about CPUs executing instructions, no idea about software and abstraction: what do they think about when they click a ‘play’ button in a music player, and the interface updates and music starts? Do they think about what is happening ‘inside’ the box? I think I do. I suspect I have a completely d…

I've asked very young students what they think a computer is and how it works. There's always at least one student who correctly replies: "It's a machine that does what someone told it to do". Of course modern computing devices are absurdly complex and intricate machines all the way from silicon to software, but the basic mechanism is easily grasped by children. For all their complexity, computers are still just prog…

There's always at least one student who correctly replies: "It's a machine that does what someone told it to do".

That's correct, right up until someone tells a computer to beat a 9-dan Go master, but not how to do it.

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