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How much of ‘What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory’ is still valid?


I am wondering how much of Ulrich Drepper's What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory from 2007 is still valid. Also I could not find a newer version than 1.0 or an errata.

(Also in PDF form on Ulrich Drepper's own site: https://www.akkadia.org/drepper/cpumemory.pdf)


Solution

  • As far as I remember Drepper's content describes fundamental concepts about memory: how CPU cache works, what are physical and virtual memory and how Linux kernel deals that zoo. Probably there are outdated API references in some examples, but it doesn't matter; that won't affect the relevance of the fundamental concepts.

    So, any book or article that describes something fundamental cannot be called outdated. "What every programmer should know about memory" is definitely worth to read, but, well, I don't think it's for "every programmer". It's more suitable for system/embedded/kernel guys.