Bartlett, Jonathan & Bruno, Dominick Programming From the Ground Up

Programming from the Ground Up uses Linux assembly language to teach new programmers the most important concepts in programming. It takes you a step at a time through these concepts: * How the processor views memory * How the processor operates * How programs interact with the operating system * How computers represent data internally * How to do low-level and high-level optimization Most beginning-level programming books attempt to shield the reader from how their computer really works. Programming from the Ground Up starts by teaching how the computer works under the hood, so that the programmer will have a sufficient background to be successful in all areas of programming. This book is being used by Princeton University in their COS 217 "Introduction to Programming Systems" course.