Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, Global Edition

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His current work focuses on the notion of autograding, that is, programs that evaluate the quality of other programs. I was not interested in and did not see any benefit for this book to touch on areas of system I/O, network programming and concurrency. The sections on cache here and in Inside The Machine stand head-to-head as the most practical introductions to the topic. Virtual memory is an important concept, but sadly it gets short shrift in computer science education.

being a good enough student to actually read and consume the textbook material is somewhat new to me, but this book made it easy. O’Hallaron is a professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. One of the strengths of the book is its use of C programming language to illustrate the concepts being presented. Together with Professor O’Hallaron, he developed the course 15-213, Introduction to Computer Systems, at Carnegie Mellon that is the basis for this book. Each topic is presented in a clear and concise manner, with numerous examples and exercises to reinforce the material.Probably didn't learn as much as CMU's course but it was a good enough "systematic" intro to systems. The descriptions are easy to understand, have the right amount of specificity, and only use examples/diagrams when necessary. Spanning across computer science themes such as hardware architecture, the operating system, and systems software, the Third Edition serves as a comprehensive introduction to programming. Having read for breadth and gleaned a low-resolution understanding of the topics, I imagine I will revisit this as-needed for deeper reference throughout my future studies and career (and have already encountered a couple real-world problems where this lower-level knowledge has helped me debug and find solutions). The authors provide all lab exercises online for those on the self study path and they are easily the most exciting part of the experience which I thoroughly enjoyed.

It covers a wide range of topics, including computer organization, memory management, virtual memory, network programming, and more.

Using practical examples and problems the book walks the student through all the hardware and software knowledge that is required to understand how a program comes to life on a computer. The authors provide numerous real-world examples and case studies throughout the book, demonstrating how the concepts presented can be applied in real-world scenarios. I actually found this a very approachable textbook on this subject, and following along with the examples and exercises in the text was quite helpful in gaining a working understanding of the material for lab exercises and exams.

I highly recommend Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective for anyone who feel they need a better grasp of these ideas. All the chapters are excellent, except maybe chapter 7 on linking and chapter 8 on exceptional control flow. Overall, "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective" is an excellent resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of computer systems and low-level programming. You read a concept, solve a problem or experiment with a program that illustrates it and then move on to the next concept.Professor O’Hallaron works in the area of computer systems, with specific interests in software systems for scientific computing, data-intensive computing, and virtualization.

It will show you what a marvellous beauty virtual memory is, the program stack, the heap, linking and loading, what really is a process and a thread (not at a surface level, but at a much deeper level) and how a computer system orchestrates your hello world program to print those ascii letters on screen.And you walk away not just with a solid understanding of the concepts but also an almost reverent appreciation for the beauty of these complex systems. While reading the book, you feel like traveling in the computer world with a smart compass that keeps telling you everything you just need, no more, no less. For five of those years he served as head of the Computer Science Department, and for ten of them he served as Dean of the School of Computer Science. The great thing about this book is that is leaves no questions unanswered about the topics it covers.