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title = "Write Great Code: Volume I: Understanding the Machine - Randall Hyde"
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date = 2016-10-05
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category = "review"
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["books", "randall hyde", "reviews", "coding", "computer architecture", "it"]
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+++
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[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35873018-write-great-code):
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Write Great Code, Volume 1 teaches machine organization, including numeric
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representation; binary arithmetic and bit operations; floating point
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representation; system and memory organization; character representation;
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constants and types; digital design; CPU, instruction set, and memory
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architecture; input and output; and how compilers work.
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<!-- more -->
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{{ stars(stars=1) }}
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"Great code" is machine dependent and written in assembly. Or, at least,
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that's what this book makes you believe till the very last chapter, when it
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starts backtracking about writing code directly into CPU code.
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Now, don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible book -- it's a damn complete book
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about *computer architecture*, even being so out-of-date that there is no word
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about SSDs (when talking about storage), no mention about MP3s (when
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discussing about audio hardware), the top CPU discussed is Pentium, there is
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no word about UTF-8 (and mentions ASCII is used all around) and recommending
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search things on AltaVista.
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The problem is discussing all this when the topic is "great code": Great code
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is not machine dependent; great code is not highly optimized code that runs
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extremely fast and uses very little memory; there are trade offs that you have
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to take in account when coding: Sure, you don't write something that uses all
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the available memory, but you write in a language that allows you to easily
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extend the code later and which your code reads exactly what you meant it to
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say. That's great code, not code that uses some multimedia extensions that is
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available since a very specific generation of CPUs.
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The book also goes into great lengths to explain stuff that is hardly useful.
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For example, there is a whole implementation of the floating point standard
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(IEEE 754), which is not optimized -- so, no great code -- and that's
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absolutely unnecessary, since this is done directly into the CPU (and, if it
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isn't, you have libraries ready for that).
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It could be that the "Great Code" will come in the later volumes, but ignoring
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what *is* great code (I mean, *real* great code) and just building a base for
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later is plainly greedy.
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