The Secret Life of Programs: Understand Computers -- Craft Better Code Kindle Edition

Don’t read the intro if you value your own confidence. I’m a smart guy and get paid well but this intro alone makes me feel like I know nothing. All it does it make me dislike him and I’m 4 pages in. He has some points but could use a non-technical editor to dial down the arrogance.As for the content it covers some basic CS stuff but doesn’t actually get down to important things like effective use of cpu cache or mmu/ram or branches. What good does it do to cover how logic works if it doesn’t cover why someone should care?

Few books in my experience are able to cover a broad and highly technical area such as computer programming in a way that leaves few stones unturned without getting bogged down in excessive or uneven detail. The Secret Life of Programs joins this short list.You may begin the book wondering why on earth you are being led through the construction of transistors and gates; after all you are a programmer and decades of computer science and language and operating system design have made it unnecessary to know this. Well, surprises are in store when Steinhart pulls from many early chapters to discuss memory hierarchy and computer architecture (chapters 4 and 5), communications (chapter 6), storing and accessing data (chapter 7), deadlocks and race conditions (chapter 12), and security (chapter 13). All of these topics lead directly to recognizing problems with software programs, and writing better software right away. As one severe example, random numbers generated in specialized CPU hardware from the world’s biggest CPU manufacturer can be altered, after production, to produce more predictable sequences by altering transistors in an undetectable way, greatly reducing their utility in secure applications.Steinhart has drawn from decades of experience as a true “full stack” engineer (transistors to complex software systems) to introduce many areas of knowledge that contribute to the quality of a complete system. Each chapter covers one important area of knowledge at a level that is easy to read (with the exception of some bad jokes sprinkled dangerously throughout), giving what I consider a surprisingly effective depth to each topic that is neither overwhelming nor pedantic, but hits the high points and provides references for those interested in diving deeper. And there are few topics, if any, that are superfluous; the later chapters tie it all together, especially chapter 13 on security. Chapter 15 asks the reader to keep in mind a central question, “Am I adding value?” and proceeds to show many examples in the software industry today where a great deal of effort is expended on solving problems that already had solutions.While I consider myself somewhat of a true “full stack” engineer as well, I found at least half of the chapters in the book very helpful in refreshing my knowledge or providing important new insights, especially in developing secure and robust systems. The highest value of the book in my opinion is the even-handed coverage of so many topics that will be almost guaranteed to improve a software engineer’s ability to “add value”.

You can read dozens of modern programming books written for beginners and still be missing out on the big picture of what programming is- on all levels from the abstraction of high level languages down to the historic context and fundamental mechanics of the hardware in computers- however, if this book is in your first dozen you will not have this misunderstanding. I read most of this book in one night, a lot of the details will feel like review to students of math and computer science but what this book gives is the concise insight and intuition from a veteran in the field. Especially after reading the last chapter, which touches on how to write code, and why, and urges the reader to give back to the open source community, when you close the back cover you will feel compelled to start writing meaningful code (that hasn’t been written before).

This book is amazing. I bought it to refresh my programming basics for courses I teach programming on industrial PLC computers, from beginner to expert. It delves into so much more. Humorous and informative. I highly recommend.

The title is funny but a bit misleading. This book covers the almost the whole field of computer science from the theory of computing to the construction of the computer to the programming of working computers. Even goes a little of the way into distributed processing and modern phenomena computing in a web environment. Sections are brief but well written. Good place to start. Encyclopedic in subjects to be understood. Brief but well written explanations. One can go deeper into any section. The explanations that are provided make it clear for you what to look for in books or online if you need to go deeper into any one area.

The book does a remarkable job in explaining aspects of computing architecture and hardware at a sufficiently high level without being too hand wavy. This is a hard task to do but Jon Steinhart does this seamlessly. A gentle read too.

... however, im a math/stats guy who is self taught in Python and R directly from books. I have a very weak knowledge of computers and, even though I can write programs, I am ignorant of the voodoo taking place in the background. Like a good trained monkey, I can follow the chapter 1 directions and set up the IDE, so I purchased this book so that I actually knew what I was doing. Also, im looking to get into related fields and wanted to familiarize myself with essential vocabulary and concepts...As a math major, I studied logic, black box circuits and regular expressions. This book has A TON of this information which I didn't particularly care for. However, the very last chapter was well worth the price of the book!! I loved it and will read it over and over again.If I was a CS major then The Secret Life Of Programs would be an indispensable guide for every single class I would have had to take. Very well written, enjoyable, thorough, and comprehensive!! Well done.

Enjoy reading this book

Sollte in jedem Informatikstudium als Pflichtlektüre angegeben werden.Hilft einem zu verstehen was auf der Maschinenebene passiert wenn man in einer Highlevel-Sprache programmiert.