The One with the Low-Level Secrets

Understanding low-level APIs

Writing software can be a daunting task. You need to consider many things when you try to convert your ideas into something that works on the machine. After all, there are so many things you need to tell the computer before it does something useful.

But we are in luck. Many of the instructions we need to give the CPU are encapsulated in frameworks, tools, packages, and other pieces of software. These building blocks allow us to focus on what we want to build instead of how the CPU might interpret our instructions. That makes life a lot easier!

This chapter looks into those building blocks, how they help us, and how we can best use them. This chapter also covers how .NET works and where it comes from. This is important: most developers take the advantages of .NET for granted. That is fine since the framework hides much complexity. However, when writing lower-level system software, it is essential to know why things...