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I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

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Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#101

Post by Const-me »

mgaunard wrote: post #59
archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

I haven't done the research, but I can't believe most of the information could be that hard to find or wrong, at least if you know where to look. These sorts of topics are usually well-covered in the matching undergraduate-level computer science courses (computer architecture and operating systems, which, these days, are mostly optional since out of fashion). Several universities have free courses available, and some…

I share the OP’s opinion that a lot of available information is incorrect.

It seems the industry is moving faster than the academics who write books and university courses can update these sources. Big endian CPUs, CPU architectures other than AMD64 and ARM, x87 FPU, are examples of the topics which are no longer relevant. However, these topics are well covered because they were still relevant couple decades ago when people wrote these sources.

Some details of modern hardware are secret. An example from low-level programming, many sources claim CPUs have two kinds of branch predictors, static one which predicts forward branches as not taken, and the dynamic one which queries/updates these BTB entries. This is incorrect because mainstream CPUs made in the last 15 years no longer have the static one. However, the details of modern branch predictors are proprietary, so we don’t have authoritative sources on them. We only have speculations based on some micro-benchmarks.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#103

Post by archmaster »

phillipcarter wrote: post #97
archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

This is a great website! Really enjoyed reading it this morning. I wish I had something like this to supplement the really dry textbook I had to read in Operating Systems class in college. Reminds me a bit of Learn You a Haskell for Great Good, which was similarly an excellent supplement to the dry textbook: http://www.learnyouahaskell.com/

I am a big fan of Learn You a Haskell! Was absolutely lovely when I was learning FP.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#104

Post by dellorter »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #99
kkoncevicius wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always understood "tits or gtfo" to suggest that if you are mentioning you are a girl then do something related to it (show breasts) or else shut up about being a girl when its not relevant.

That's on the charitable side. It reads to me more like "a woman's acceptance in this community is predicated on her providing sexual favours". But your interpretation still reveals an issue: men are allowed to express themselves in small (and often large ) ways that are "not relevant", so why this (pervasive) attitude when women do it?

[flagged]

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#105

Post by archmaster »

cxr wrote: post #94
archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

[removed] 1. https://manybutfinite.com/category/internals >

re Figma: that's a good idea, I can definitely include SVGs

I'll check out Gustavo Duarte's posts!

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#106

Post by isaacremuant »

Cushman wrote: post #38
skizm wrote: post #18

Meta point: I'm curious of people's thoughts when OPs in general post "I'm N years old..." or "I'm a blind programmer who..." before posting something unrelated to their life situation. Personally I think this falls into the "girls do not exist on the internet" rule of thumb. No reason to state that you're a girl (or 12 years old or whatever) other than to prime people to look upon your writing with lower standards.…

Gently: Could we please not? :) This is a young person who’s new to the community. That’s where communities come from! Without other comment, this meta thread is pushing the author’s personal statement below the fold. As the grown-ass adults in the room, we can have our judgments, but we should try to make a little space, too.

I disagree with your premise of censoring as a "way to be welcoming".

There's a valid discussion to be had about the title and the need to preface things with age.

As a a grown ass adult you're not making space, you're demanding ranking that favours your ideas and even more, the silence of some you disagree with.

The funniest thing is that you didn't even address the guide itself. The style or the content, you just came to do "justice" or something.

Content is good enough. Style is a bit "full of wonder and amazement" and has its own particular flair but that's just personal style, regardless of age. You could even argue that age is necessary to account for "the audience are other high schoolers, but that's if you have the discussion you're asking people not to have (and whoever agrees with your censoring mindset and downvoted OP to now effectively hiding it from. View).

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#107

Post by t0b1 »

That‘s a very nice writeup, I like the style. The mix of text to illustrations/memes was really pleasent. I have my reservations about the RISC/CISC nomenclature but I guess that‘s „each to their own“ >.>

As someone who has spent some time figuring out how parts of the kernels work I can sympathize with the pain it probably was (but well worth it given the article imo).

For NT, I think that Windows Internals covers a lot about the stuff one wants to know and Microsoft‘s documentation is also not bad (certainly better than Linux‘s kernel docs imo); it‘s a really good starting point.

For more info about Windows I can recommend gamehacking forums/resources. There‘s a lot of filtering needed but they are a pretty good source of info for niche things sometimes.

As a last note, I noticed that the font of some code blocks are pretty large when viewed on my smartphone making them hard to read (e.g. Ch. 6/main.c)

P.S.: > If you are a teenager and you like computers and you are not already in the Hack Club Slack, you should join right now

Way too remind me that I‘m getting old lol

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#108

Post by archmaster »

simonw wrote: post #90
archmaster wrote: post #14

Hi! I'm Lexi, I wrote this article/mini-book. There's a classic question of "what happens when you load a website?", but I've always been more interested in "what happens when you run a program?". About 3 months ago, I was really annoyed at myself for not knowing how to answer that question so I decided to teach myself. I taught myself everything else I know in programming, so this should be easy, right? NOPE! Appare…

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but initial impressions are that this looks GREAT. Being able to communicate concepts like this well in writing is a rare skill, it will serve you very well in your future career.

Thank you + I hope you enjoy! I would really appreciate your feedback if you finish.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#109

Post by seabass-labrax »

simonw wrote: post #88
bobboies wrote: post #15

The only thing is I hate titles like this—the title is bragging a bit too much. Maybe a title more like: “How I’m helping my high school peers learn about CPUs”. That way it implies you’re young, smart, and care about others—all of which I imagine are true :)

Hacker News automatically removes the word "How" from the beginning of submissions (and then Title Cases them for good measure) - so I believe submitting that title would instead result in this: I'm Helping My High School Peers Learn About CPUs I might be wrong though, it might only do this with "How to ...".

'How to' is one of the title forms that isn't modified, currently.

Re: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs

#110

Post by dellorter »

oytis wrote: post #92
skizm wrote: post #18

Meta point: I'm curious of people's thoughts when OPs in general post "I'm N years old..." or "I'm a blind programmer who..." before posting something unrelated to their life situation. Personally I think this falls into the "girls do not exist on the internet" rule of thumb. No reason to state that you're a girl (or 12 years old or whatever) other than to prime people to look upon your writing with lower standards.…

Internet is a different place now. People bring their personalities and identities in. Don't think there is anything wrong with it. Also nothing wrong with being more patient with very young people and more impressed with their achievements IMO.

I think some of the negativity towards identity is that it’s usually not something that can be merited as your doing and not usually relevant.

I understand this criticism, but think it’s a lost cause to point it out.

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