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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

#191

Post by minton »

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…

It makes me happy to see the future generations refusing to accept the magic of it all and instead pulling back the curtain. Excellent work!

As a side note, once OpenAI slurps up your work, the next ChatGPT might not have to lie so much.

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

#192

Post by linhns »

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/

For those who haven’t bookmarked this, do it immediately. I actually did not like it at first but as time goes by I just realized it is awesome. And it’s free!

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

#193

Post by cinntaile »

vmladenov wrote: post #179
archmaster wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are very correct, and I don't like it. There should be more "online books" that are in depth and correct!

Have a look at this one! https://github.com/angrave/SystemProgramming/wiki It was still in development when I went, looks like they made a PDF now. https://github.com/illinois-cs241/coursebook

The course was changed from cs241 to cs341 so I think the most up to date version is here [0] now.

[0] https://cs341.cs.illinois.edu/coursebook/index.html

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

#195

Post by linhns »

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 gone through everything but this is looking much better than anything universities can produce. First time I feel that I can go through all of these content and want more.

What a brilliant job you’re doing here. Keep it up and you’ll have a wonderful career.

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

#196

Post by munificent »

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 very, very well written. Congratulations on making (and finishing!) such a good resource!

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

#197

Post by RamblingCTO »

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 just read the first chapter and it reads very very nice! Wish I had that back in Uni haha. Well done, keep on going! Computers are indeed simple and complicated at the same time.

/e: this was also a trip down memory lane to my time at Uni and why I fell in love with compsci. It's so inherently beautiful and clever, every teeny tiny bit of it.

I also had a great book when starting out: "Einführung in die Informatik" from Gumm/Sommer (my professors), written in German. They explain round about everything on a basic level in round about 900 pages. Think about how far we've come in the last 15 years, wow! I feel very sentimental now haha

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

#198

Post by zahllos »

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've only skim-read your articles so far, but it looks excellent. Congratulations and please keep doing work like this. I previously worked as a research engineer (a fancy name for a software engineer working in a university lab, in my case doing computer security research) so believe me when I say there are graduate students who don't have your grasp of operating systems (see the comments elsewhere on OS courses being optional).

> Apparently everything online about how operating systems and CPUs work is terrible.

Unfortunately finding good information is not easy, but it is out there - you've proven it by synthesizing some of that hard to find information into a better form. My degree is in mathematics, but my computing knowledge is self taught. Knowing how to learn in this way and to be able to communicate highly technical information in an approachable manner are incredibly important skills and not to be underestimated.

I have two links to share - I limited myself to two because we could be here a long time otherwise:

1. https://git.lain.faith/sys64738/airs-notes.git (TOC for linker part here: https://lwn.net/Articles/276782/) - you've scratched the surface of ELFs and linking. This is a 20-article blog series by Ian Lance Taylor plus miscellaneous extra topics containing everything you ever wanted to know about ELFs and quite a bit that will likely make you wonder how any of your commands are actually even working! There's even a brief mention of ELF's companion, DWARF, which amongst other things is a virtual machine used every time a C++ exception is triggered.

2. Have you seen this excellent project? https://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux-insides/content/ - essentially a human-readable walkthrough of how the Linux kernel does stuff. Has almost certainly been shared on HN before.

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