Why Systems Knowledge

• lecture

#lecture note based on 15-213 Introduction to Computer Systems

• Looking underneath abstractions
  • Abstractions have limit
• Become a better programmer by understanding what things are compiled to

• ints / floats are just abstractions
  • overflow
  • floats don’t work like $\mathbb{R}$
• Need to know assembly
  • bug in C code -> read assembly -> fix C code
• Memory
  • limit
  • performance
  • bugs
• Performance beyond big-O - optimising constant factor
  • how things are arranged in memory matters
• Other than programme execution
  • Error handling
  • Networking
  • IO