Author here ...<p>Yes as pointed out many times not "computer science" and I somewhat regret the name. However, it came out of me being a teaching assistant for people doing computer science degrees. A surprising number of people got to 3rd year operating systems courses without realising things like 2^10 is a kilobyte, 2^20 is a megabyte, etc. Let alone how a program was linked and loaded. I hope for this to be helpful, there are plenty of similar resources but sometimes the way one person says something resonates more than another.<p>I deliberately wanted to avoid x86-only to illustrate for similar reasons. Unfortunately Itanium proved to be a poor choice, ARM would have been better, but it gives me something to update if I get time! However, much of the basic content still remains relevant many years on.
While not technically all of what's covered in CS, in my experience with a PhD in Comp. Eng., 8 years as an AF comm officer, and 3.5 years in the commercial sector as a soft. eng., this is vastly more useful than most of what's covered in a CS curriculum.<p>The CS curriculum probably made more sense back in the day when everyone was essentially an embedded developer. But nowadays, the most useful knowledge I have is the low level mechanics of how things like the OS and networking protocols work. S/W eng. classes are a bit useful, but mostly knowing how to write in C++, Java, and now Python has gotten me most of the way. As it is, I have almost never run into a situation where most of my CS classes have been relevant. And, where they are relevant, it can be covered by a week course in the basics.<p>I feel the CS curriculum would be much better service for students if it covered more of the knowledge of how to get things done. And not in a faddish, framework du jour manner, but there are constant elements throughout all the fads that a good developer should learn cold, and are not covered very well, at least in my 8 years in CS academia.<p>IMHO the real problem with CS is that it's driven by AI envy, and much of what is considered important only makes sense in light of the assumption the human mind is basically a computer, and CS is all about how to recreate a human mind. However, almost none of that line of thought matters in the real world, and is most likely false.
Here’s a slightly different take: The Secret Life of Programs (<a href="https://nostarch.com/foundationsofcomp" rel="nofollow">https://nostarch.com/foundationsofcomp</a> ). It starts with a practical set of things and then ends with some survey overviews for people who want to know more.<p>A complement, not really an alternative, to this pdf.<p>(I fumble fingered this the first time and left out the link! Unfortunately I can't delete the confusing comment but fortunately it is being downvoted away)
Seems an excellent place to mention <a href="http://linuxfromscratch.org/" rel="nofollow">http://linuxfromscratch.org/</a>
Related: nand2tetris: <a href="https://www.nand2tetris.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nand2tetris.org/</a>.<p><i>"This site supports a course and a textbook that guide students and self-learners through the construction of a modern, full-scale computer system - hardware and software - from the ground up."</i>
> "This bit is crap" (<a href="https://www.bottomupcs.com/chapter02.xhtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.bottomupcs.com/chapter02.xhtml</a> under "Reordering")<p>Might want to proofread some of this and remove the ... proof-reading notes? Not sure what you thought was crap about this section?
This is great. It covers a pretty wide range of stuff one is presumed to know and allows for both a big picture view and sufficient detail for some "hole-filling" and connection between ideas.
I would consider this an interesting lecture series.
Does anyone know if there's a book like this? Basically intro to OS but conceptual stuff only - for someone who didn't take it in school and wants to learn the high level details, not to the level normally covered in a college course.
I have this favorited/bookmarked for the foreseeable future. Thank you for working on this (I hope it's still an active project if readers point out discrepancies)
Not very good to be honest. Nothing about schedulers, bootstrap, and most of it is very general information. it doesn't give actual clear picture how everything comes together, and it is very system specifics (unix). CS should be agnostic to any system architecture. You do cover binary , but the more fundamental question what is the foundation of binary mathematics. It goes back to Turing machine, and how transistors are built and how you compose them into bigger units, and then you talk about CPU architecture, the adder, multiplexer, the PLU, etc.
Here’s a slightly different take: starts with a practical set of things and then ends with some survey overviews for people who want to know more.<p>A complement, not really an alternative, to this pdf.
I remember reading this a few years back.<p>I stopped reading at some point because there were so many errors, unfinished bits, and just flat-out garbage.<p>Sorry to the author but this needs to improve. It's a good start, but you need to invite fixes and implement them. Put your email address on every single page and invite fixes and then implement them.<p>This could be an awesome resource, but right now it's too full of errors to be useful.<p>Nobody should be recommending this. Nobody who had actually reviewed it all would recommend it.