Software, from First Principles

Excellent overview to give footing to anyone hovering at the higher levels of abstraction like myself. The interactive diagrams helped make some concepts click that were trickier to grasp from previous readings

I liked this article. Richly illustrated and kept things interesting, even for a reader who is familiar with most of the material. Maybe too long for a single reading though, you might have better response by publishing in more digestable chunks. And I'd remove the AI messaging, it distracts from the main ideas.

I really like the diagrams! This is a great way to show what happens deep down. A lot of engineers I know have very poor understanding of how software actually works. However a couple of things: - Theres a lot of text and not all of it is valuable - Hijacking the browsers "back" button is kind of annoying.

Congratulations! This is incredibly well done. Please consider creating a “part ii” that expands on the entire thread to one level of greater detail.

> On the other hand, for those who understand these abstractions very well, AI agents are not a threat but a multiplier....

It would be better without the editorializing.

> we are able to make the rock calculate

I'm so tired of this cliche...

a CPU is a rock about as much as much as an airplane is a rock (aluminium ore), "look, we are able to make rocks fly on their own power, isn't that awesome?"

people using it think they are impressing the normies, but it just shows them being condescending "of course I dont believe rocks calculate, but I assume you are so stupid and know so little that you might actually believe me and be impressed by my people"