Chapter 1: A Tour of Computer Systems
I found reading this first chapter enjoyable. Learning about C and the relationship between computer hardware & software seemed very insight from the lens of someone who writes code. It’s one thing to know that machines ready binary code of 0’s and 1’s, but it’s a completely different context when being able to understand how C is preprocessed, compiled, linked, & merged into binary code.
Being introduced to the various pieces of what goes on in the CPU is pretty cool too. Understanding how there’s abstractions for different pieces relating to virtual memory, processes, & files.
There’s plenty that I have to revisit, review, and then write about, but so far, I’m just letting things settle in my brain. I think the easiest piece of information to digest is how their is a hierarchy of memory, when moving from the CPU register files, to cache (L1 – L3), to main memory (RAM), and to secondary storage (disk). It’s cheaper and slower, the further down the hierarchy you go, or faster and more expensive vice versa.
Til next time …