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by isido 3065 days ago
Generally, you need to know the operating systems and hardware work together. And then depending on the details, you might need to know C and assembly. In this case, you need to have good understanding on how modern processors do performance optimizations.

There probably isn't any good single resource for learning all this, but perhaps getting some good textbook on computer hardware architecture might be good next step after reading the "Code". Unfortunately I don't have any immediate suggestions on the current crop - I remember learning from William Stallings' books some 15-20 years back - not sure if they are the best choice nowadays.

2 comments

The course "Computer Systems Architecture" at Queen's University uses "Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface" by Patterson and Hennessy. It's a 400-level course in the computer and electrical engineering department. I can recommend it. Most chapters in it have a "Real Stuff" section where they look at a real world CPU and compare it with the contents of the book to see how the theory actually ends up in practice.
I'd also recommend the text Structured Computer Organization by Tannenbaum[1].

[1] https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Tanenbau...

Thanks. A simple search returned that it is still being used by some universities. I should take a closer look after I'm done reading "Code".