Fundamentals

Before we can write elegant algorithms or design clever data structures, we need to understand the machine we are working with. This section takes a bottom-up approach, starting from the physical hardware and building up to the abstractions we use every day as programmers.

Why bother with all this? Because understanding the foundations transforms you from someone who memorizes rules into someone who truly gets why things work the way they do. When you know what happens beneath the surface, debugging becomes intuitive, performance optimization makes sense, and best practices stop feeling arbitrary.

What We Will Cover

Hardware Foundations

We begin with the physical machine itself. What actually happens when you press a key or run a program? How does a computer store information using only electricity? These articles demystify the hardware layer, covering the CPU, memory, binary representation, and how circuits can perform logic.

The Layers of Software

Next, we bridge the gap between hardware and the high-level code you write every day. We will explore assembly language (the CPU's native tongue), how programming languages abstract the machine, where your variables actually live in memory, and the different paradigms for organizing code.

Introduction to Algorithms

Finally, we build the vocabulary for discussing efficiency. What makes one solution faster than another? How do we measure and compare performance? This foundation in algorithmic thinking prepares you for everything that follows.

A Note on Pace

Take your time with this material. These concepts are dense, and there is no prize for rushing through them. Each article builds on the last, so if something feels unclear, revisit the previous sections. The goal is not to memorize facts, but to develop intuition that will serve you throughout your programming journey.