Preface

Most people think of graphical user interface (GUI) applications when they think of software. Software is the code that the user interacts with. But these days, that’s not true anymore. All modern applications, web servers, web applications, and mobile solutions mostly rely on hidden, unseen system software. This is the software that is built for other software. It is dormant until needed, then it does its job and goes back to sleep. These programs are the unsung heroes of our ecosystem, doing the work in the background. At the same time, GUI systems stand in the limelight. However, do not underestimate these hard-working systems: they must be extremely fast, reliable, and safe. Therefore, they are essential to good working systems and are hard to write. This book teaches you all you need to know to write these applications.