Highest Level Programmer/Hacker: "I only do my programming and hacking on the highest level, social engineering. I don't even touch the keyboard anymore. I just manipulate people and have them do that task for me."
This is what is known as a "Software manager", or possibly, "Senior Developer" who spend 70% of their time reviewing other people's code and 30% of their time in meetings.
You can learn C in less than a week, but pointers might take a lifetime. FWIW, C is my favorite language. It's fast. It's very well debugged. It also has unintelligible error messages, and its libraries have unstandardized APIs, e.g. malloc takes one argument, calloc two. Both simply allocate memory.
Like human language, coding is just a bunch of different ways to speak depending on who and where you are the way and language changes. Like going to India as a Canadian and walk up to a women or man and if your south or North it will change .
Absolutely spot on! I'm retired after 45 years in my career that started first in hardware (Data General Nova and Eclipse), assembly programming on the same. I learned C from the first edition of K&R C Programming language writing network software for bridging the minicomputers to Novell PC based networks. Knowing the internal register architecture was key to understanding every processor I've used since. I can't quantify how many hours I spent in CodeView hybrid view where the C code was shown in assembly for debugging. I spend most days even now in C on the various microcontrollers enjoying embedded programming. The ties between hardware understanding and programming is essential.
Hey I wanted to ask if K&R is the best for a completely new programmer, don't know anything. Will it take me from 0 or does it expect me to be at 30 to take me to 99?
@@Zeni-th. The K&R book was a reference for us when the C language was new. Now there are so many resources available, even for free, on the net that I wouldn't start with K&R. Even small platforms like the Arduino are excellent to learn C programming and the number of example programs is astronomical (and with the Arduino/ESP platforms you can extend your learning into Python easily as well.) Great place to start,
If you see the amount of assembly generated for a simple printf(“hello world”); you’d see why it’s an high level language, maybe the first of this type, but there is still lots of abstraction in C, I think generally you refer to C as a low level because it gives you memory control like no others probably, which is also a bad thing 😅
This video came at the right time for me. I'm a backend engineer working primarily in Python, but I've been feeling an urge to start tinkering with something lower level. I want to start datamining games but I have no idea how to do it given the files are encrypted. I found your channel because I was looking for stuff on reverse engineering.
Wheeew - simply couldn't agree more. I've been coding casually, but also to a degree professionally (Think DevOps as opposed to developer) for nigh on 20 years. A few years ago I started to pick up, essentially, what this video says - I dipped my toe into Reverse Engineering, I started playing with C, and I started writing embedded software for STM32 devices (and now Raspberry Pico) in C & now Rust. Without a doubt, I've learnt more in 2 years of those projects than in the preceeding 18 despite having a vast list of succesful projects under my belt. Modern software just abstracts SO much - honestly, I would say I didn't even really, truly, understand arrays and lists until I learnt C. And then you start writing embedded and realise there is no memory allocater, and THEN it gets interesting all over again. I just wish I'd picked this stuff up 20 years ago.
As someone in the automotive industry for 30 years I am looking into embedded c & misra c variants. Every night I'm learning the c language and the concepts arrays, pointers, recursion, etc etc. What path, data structure, and/or syntax would you say is the best to concentrate more on?
Was waiting for you to suggest Machine Code. (I knew someone who was teaching themselves to program with this on a ZX Spectrum 128k back in the 80's...)
I tried to write a blinker led example in assembly before for an Arduino nano before and it was challenging and teaches a lot of stuff, so seeing you releasing a video about that topic exactly made feel more confident that i'm in right way
I learned ASM6502 (assembly) for NES game programming - one of the best things I've ever done. Any time someone talks about registers, the stack, bit shifting, etc... I feel like I (at a minimum) broadly understand what they're talking about, regardless of the programming language.
i also started with assembly on the good old 8 bit CPUs like the 6502 and Z80. mainly because i found them simple enough to learn all the features and quirks for, but still powerful/usable enough to do work with (ie gamedev for the NES, Gameboy, writing programs for custom SBCs, etc) from there learned C and more Assembly variants like M68K, AVR, some x86_32, RISC-V (though pronouncing it "risk vi" instead of "risk 5" is cursed)
@@proxy1035 very cool! I'm looking forward to learning Z80 when time permits - I took a brief look at it about a year ago (Gameboy) and it didn't go well - but the same was true with 6502 at first!
Writing OS from scratch was the best learning experience for me. It didn't have userspace or scheduler, but it gave me the basic idea of how computers work.
@@TheVirtualArena24 not necessarily. It just shouldn't be used for everything. It's just a bit of a meme due to its weird behavior and funky ecosystem.
Lowest level programming is one of my favorite RU-vid channels ever. When I first got into tech I was pushed more towards front and engineering which is all fine and dandy but I found that I wanted to learn how the hardware interacts with the software. A lot of people seem to think that that is not needed anymore but I came to find out that a lot of people who have those skills are retiring or literally dying off. So I predict that there is going to be a high need for people that understand very low level code - even if there are not as many job openings as say JavaScript Developers, companies will have a hard time finding people for low level jobs.
There's a lot of focus on how your cpu does things, and honestly there's a lot I personally could learn there but I think the one topic you might be overlooking is how memory access and caching works. I spent a few months reading and learning about efficient use of cpu caching (and as a result efficient multicore programming) and it blew my mind what a difference it made. I recommend the paper What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory by Ulrich Drepper.
Get a uC like any Atmel ATMega. Code with C, later use ASM and toggle some outputs, control a motor, led, pumps etc. and create a small project like an automatic water pump that pours water on a plant when it's getting too dry (measure impedance between two nails).
Having coded for Motorola 6809E and some 68k back in the 90s, the one thing that I've noticed over the last few decades is that people in our technical field have lost the ability to troubleshoot. Learning by making mistakes also seems to be stigmatised somewhat. It's by going through this process and stumbling and failing, then being able to find your bugs that you learn. The ability to leverage internet searches at your fingertips and the collective knowledge of peers is incredible today compared to 30 years ago. And of course "Digital Intelligence"(AI) has also spoiled us. Learning the low level is great but not everyone necessarily appreciates it significance. Do modern curriculums at university even teach it anymore? Or is it merely that the amount of compute at our fingertips spoils us? Loving your videos and thank goodness for people like you. 👍
I follow this channel a lot, and I really like C/kernels and low-level programming in general. Would you say for someone who's not a beginner but not an expert either to learn concepts from a book first, lets say operating system internals/kernels and then apply those concepts/implementation? I've been trying to learn and understand all things low-level and hopefully someday land a job in this niche field but I only have experience in high-level web/mobile development.
@@bensonboys6609 Glad to be of help. It won't replace a real class on the subject and I highly recommend you to check on Boolean algebra (and a few basic theorems such as DeMorgan's) to avoid being stuck at some puzzles as I deed ✌️
Thank you for this video. As a self taught developer whose main languages are JS and Python, I've been wanting to have a stronger foundation and actually understand why/how my code does what it does. So I started learning C about a month and a half ago. It's uncomfortable, but in a satisfying way. I feel like I'm actually going to understand my craft stuff deeply. I'm excited to see what I know this time next year or maybe 2 years from now, going down this path.
this great advice. this was a really interesting video, so packed with information that I watch it twice (because i usually watch doing the dishes, and I missed some of the information. )
@@trots4940 I mean, it depends on what you are emulating. If it's an old virtual machine like Chip-8, it's pretty damn easy, if you are already a programmer it can be done over a weekend, and I'd expect a student to be able to do it in a couple weeks. Real hardware stuff is definitely trickier, and sometimes you have to deal with things you might not realize on otherwise simple systems. Like when I started making an Atari 2600 emulator, the CPU and memory emulation portions were quite simple, but so much of that system is dependent on NTSC emulation as all the timings come from the TV for that system, and so I didn't get graphics up and running nearly as easily as I thought I would. NES is actually not tooooo bad if you are focused on just the simplest mapper (emulating Donkey Kong) though I haven't actually done that one myself yet (it's next on my list). I haven't explored Intellivision but it might actually be a really good candidate for emulation practice as well, as it's a bit more advanced than Atari but still not super complicated hardware-wise.
I'd love LOVE love to see a video about the best practices for rewriting a high level lang to low, I can interpret x86 asm perfectly and vice versa but when I'm RE'ing I tend to create something that's only good enough to run. Great video fren
I wished you’d provide excellent links. There’s a lot of trash online and helping people find good sources will make them work out what’s a good source and what’s trash.
0:00 🎓 Focus on learning low-level concepts such as C programming language. 2:49 🧠 Understanding an assembly variant provides insights into CPU behavior and aids in code optimization. 3:56 🔍 Learning reverse engineering basics enhances understanding of code functionality and aids in debugging. 5:18 💡 Exploring embedded systems with boards like STM32 and writing C code for them enriches low-level understanding and practical skills.
The best advice in my opinion is to learn Delphi. With the Pascal language and inline assembly, you have maximal low level abilities, but get to produce a useful, tractable Win32 native app with a GUI form editor and very useful RTL which is way cleaner than Cpp STL.
Zero to low level; just what I needed... even that mentality is genius. Slowly but surely is reminiscent to the three pigs story. Let us pace ourselves and work hard, so this foundation will be strong and last. Thank You
Love that last part about tricking rocks to think. My own personal definition of magic is "the ability to manipulate reality with consciousness". When it comes to computers I think we do just that, which is part of what makes it so cool.
The issue in my domain is that the juice will never be worth the squeeze. I will NEVER have a business case that would justify using a lower level language. There is FAR too much value to be unlocked with just Python and nothing else.
@@colbyboucher6391 All the ML tools algorithms live in Python world. Big businesses or businesses with a large customer-facing web presence could certainly use efficient lower-level code, but for the vast majority of business use cases you simply don't need the scale or the speed. Even Wal-Mart made the deliberate decision to run each building on its own separate architecture and tooling (they did this for resiliency and security). For basic business stuff frankly you just don't need the efficiency; the additional value you unlock from just boring Python or Java is perfectly sufficient unless you're Netflix etc.
I believe that C is considerably enough low level since it allows memory manipulation. I know it's not Assembly, nor binary, but it is reasonably deep enough so a learner can understand the intricacies of low level coding. Great suggestion.
First rule of safe memory usage in C: never alocate memory dynamically. As an Autosar developer we are Misra compliant so dynamic memory allocation is alway forbidden (together with a much of other software metrics and qualification standards which makes SW development in the automotive industry a bore).
3:08 I think the problem with that is that modern compilers perform so many optimizations that it's mostly not possible to guess what a given piece of code will compile to unless it's a trivial case. Absolutely agree that you should know how a CPU works, but imo actually going to the assembly level only becomes relevant when you're writing high performance code or want to know some specific detail about your code
"Before you take a plane, learn how planes work; before you take a ride, learn how vehicle motors work". See how ridiculous is that? Same with computers. Developer here. I have been working with computers for 8 years, and while certainly would be of help to know how things work "at the low level", that's definitely not an issue for the average aspiring developers.
The right analogy would be, say, flying a plane or performing maintenance on one. Incidentally one of the industries that's suffering the most under the competence crisis.
I have a lot of interest in low level coding and low level knowledge of computers. But my main interest is graphics programming and game development, it is what I am learning now. And, to learn how to write shaders and graphics code (openGL, directX, etc), it is almost mandatory to understand the low level of things, how a GPU works, how data transfer and access works, etc. Liked a lot your video! Will try to make a OpenGL 3D renderer in pure C (Right now I code in C++ at work and use it to study too, together with GDScript for godot when not messing with low level)
To further discuss about C being low level, defining low level language will depend on what are you doing. If you are doing C programming and use a framework, can it still be called low level? Or is it like dialect where the language is the same (C) but how you use it can vary with framework to framework? Arduino framework literally abstract away a lot of things but still give you access to hw if you need to. But yeah, all things considered, C language has a compiler for most architecture so it's still quite universal while being able to do low level stuff.
@@LiveType yep. But it's sad to see that simpler architecture is being abandoned. Atmega is not being used on the newer Arduino model IIRC. I forgot the replacement but it was really more complex so I don't think it will be suitable for beginner learning.
Years ago I stumbled upon Ben Eater and followed along with his 8-bit breadboard computer. I understand how logic operates on the physical level but I didn't know any code. So I went the complete polar opposite and learned Python. Now I'm learning C++ and working my way back down. It's cool because in my head when I'm thinking about a problem I weigh the time/effort of soldering components vs coding it up.
Understanding what is programming, how electrical pulses from wires comes to CPS and converted into 0s and 1s. and how the OS works while program executes. It's just too good to know all these and helps me alot in my compiler design and automata languages. Also in many subjects of CS
As an embedded developer, I couldn't agree more. The only thing that is quite alien to me and will likely always be is X86 assembly. I dabbled into it way back when Real Mode was the only mode you'd use, but when I look at 64-bits code, I don't understand a thing. But then again, I hardly program anything for the PC - mostly just tools for my actual work, and those tools often are written in Python. But I do understand ARM assembly to some degree, and I worked a lot in assembly on different 8-bit MCUs. There was a time when I even knew most of the 8051 opcodes and could basically read a hex dump as if it were an assembler listing.... 😅 And when it comes to STM32 - while their idea of generating a lot of code for you is nice, the code is usually pretty terrible. As is their Eclipse-based IDE (ugh), but fortunately you don't have to use it.
LoL it's funny as I learned assembly before I even learned C! Turbo Pascal was a great low level language back in the early 90's as you could write whatever you needed in it but could easily embed assembler inside your Pascal code without needing external files. In fact, when the x86 made the jump from 16-bit registers to 32-bit. The current assembler in Turbo Pascal didn't know how to use them so we'd have to embed machine code nemonics inside our inline assembly code to use 32-bit instructions. If I recall correctly it was something like: db 0x66; Machine Language < Assembly Language < C/C++
I coded basic, m6809 assembler (really got to know the computer well) and then C on Sun computers, linux, Raspberry Pi and then microcontrollers. I agree that it is good to understand the hardware as (hopefully) the code will be streamlined for easy conversion in to machine language.
Do you recommend new "low level students" to create a compiler from scratch as one of their first exercises? Like, just by studying how a compiler works and start making one just by searching how to implement each small part of it? I really want to make one to improve my knowledge and reasoning, but I don't know how difficult it is
I've done the exact steps but backwards. started on an Atmel chip (before Arduino was cool), then reverse engineering, learned assembly along the way and recently I wrote a lot of C. And I still somehow don't hate javascript.
It's pretty easy to copy past JavaScript into C, mostly you end up changing 'const', 'let' and 'var' into the C types. If you use typescript convert the type definitions into structs and for the last trick convert the function defs into C style functions. For all the JS haters, the syntax is designed to be close to C.
Funny. I know everything mentioned this video. Graduates in 2005 and my first language to learn and master is C. Programmed 8085 micro controller and learned ASM. Wrote a boot loader using ASM as my Masters final year project. I code micro controllers for fun in C and Micro Python. I see why I only work 2 days in 2 weeks and still get more done than 95% of people :).
I'd like to learn low level. and this is no critique, but in my current use case I see it more pragmatic using my time to create or find established high level solutions to solve my current problems.
Programming at a low level is pretty easy. In my youth, after I learned BASIC I start programming 6502 assembly on my school's Apple IIe. Programming in a modern language and knowing how the memory models work is where the challenge is.
@@efdbjon2114Actually there really isn't. Sure if you are reverse engineering compiled code, you have to know how registers and the stack are used for calling functions, but there is nothing mysterious about assembly.
First Rust will never supersede C if that case it might be Zig. But I think C will never be superseded just because of the sheer quantity of C code that will never be rewritten because it would be a waste of capital. There’s far less COBOL and we still have cobol running and still seeking developers to maintain it. Master quantum physics than you’ll approximate understanding as to how electrons behave in silicon. But I agree with your list. Sane must I push on people.
I learned basic then assembly on an Atari 1200xl back in the early 80s'. Once we started using Apple II computers in junior high school, I learned Pascal and C on it. Since then I've read countless books on various architectures and I can't tell you how learning assembly and C has made my life so much easier. I didn't have the Internet back then, so computer magazines like Antic, Analog, PC Magazine and others, and later bulletin board systems, were my main source of learning how other people wrote code. I reverse engineered numerous programs to learn how professional programmers wrote programs, and I learned a lot of tricks from that back then. The last 30 years as a Software Engineer have been so much easier and fun because of learning the basics of how various processors and architectures work, and how to get them to do what you want using assembly and C. Sure, C++ and C# are my daily drivers for Windows applications; but for fast routines, I still rely on C and assembly.
Wow your closing statement is something I have thought about before. Especially since today almost any developer job is mostly using dependencies and working in the higher level which ofcoure is fine because it's more time and quality efficient but I have questioned whether with time developers will forget how the lower level works.
Come here after the stream. I’m BMDaemon, I asked about what book should you recommend to learn low level from ground up. I love your stream, thanks you so much. 😊
It may be a good idea to learn assembly for a 6502 or 6510. It's very basic (no pun intended) and it helps you learn the basics with minimal registers, and a very limited instruction set. I think you may be able to find a C64 emulator with an assembler.
I like to say that I haven't come across a better programming language than C so far. That for me is the best compiled language. On the other side of things with interpreted scripting languages, my favorite would have to be Luascript. I wanted to say Java but it's both and I kind of hated it's code bases.
The distinction might be lost on people now since we take it for granted, but the essence of a high level language is that it removes the need for necessary pointers. It is nice not to have to write them everywhere since they're redundant, and it also allowed languages to be accurate without the need to specify a processor width or add other similar low level schemes.
6:00 - definitely agree here. And... for that reason, I heartily recommend Ben Eater's channel. Build your own 8-bit CPU on a breadboard, and you'll learn so much! Then take it up a notch with the 6502-based computer, too, if you want something _a little_ closer to modern. :)
the only C programming I had to do was for a custom split keyboard (corne or the crkbd/r2g), and it was an interesting experience having to prioritize features and optimize the code to fit on a very small memory space (im coming from C#, Python and similar stuff)
Currently learning c and assembly at uni, and I gotta say, this is hell. Maybe it's because the teaching tactics at my uni are equivalent to throwing someone into a river in hopes they would learn how to swim, and calling them a lazy idiot if they ask questions. Idk, it seems like a lot of things are so complicated, I would never learn them well enough for this knowledge to actually be useful. Isn't it better to rely on a safety net of a language like python, if that means I can do things I like, and not waste years of my life and destroy my health trying to become assembly expert?
Getting a better understanding of low level is underrated for developers who are used to work with high level languages. I myself sort of stumbled into getting familiar with reverse engineering and assembly through retro game modding and it dramatically enriched the way I think about software. Luckily some c++ experience had me used to the idea of looking at memory directly, that's another one I think is very underrated. It's that extra bit of context that completes the picture.
I've been in a sort of programming limbo, where I've been jumping from web to data, from data to network and have been intaking a lot of knowledge but accomplishing near to none. Your RU-vid channel has directed me towards my niche in programming and I cannot thank you enough.
No no no. I learned how to program in Actionscript (yes, you can laugh), but what *really* kickstarted my programming career was when I learned 6502 assembly. To this date, I think learning 6502 assembly (or a similar 70-80s microprocessor) is *the* best way to learn how computers *really* work. It puts you into this small little sandbox, but gives you the tools you need from grown-up architectures. 6502 assembly has pointers. And it can dereference pointers. And it gives you that in a memory space that's only 64K. Even if you mess up, you can still debug and follow along where your pointer went and how it got there. C isn't "low level", 6502 assembly is low level and an amazing tool for when you get around to actually learning C and modern computing. Mind you, I'm not a greybeard. The 6502 was outdated and obsolete before I even was born. It's still an amazing low-level architecture that you can expand on when you dive into x86(/-64) or ARM, or any other architecture that's still at the forefront of computing technology today.
Personally, I don't have much hope for future generations to understand the lower level concepts. I hope they prove me wrong and keep the knowledge of how to do all of this alive.
Learning c is alright but Learning circuit design and logic gates is where the magic happens. You could type c code on a type writer until you fingers bleed and it wont do anything
