Useful articles every programmer should read

Some useful topics every programmer should read.


Floating Point Numbers

• They are very useful but often used in situations where they simply don’t suit the solution the programmer is attempting to write. The following links should provide some background and info on where they are not so useful, what the pitfalls are and sometimes even how to avoid them.
• http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html#fptutorial
• http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/04/06/numbers-are-a-leaky-abstraction/
• http://www.codeproject.com/KB/recipes/float_point.aspx
• http://drdobbs.com/184402741?pgno=4
• http://users.tkk.fi/jhi/infnan.html

Fixed Point Numbers

• Fixed point math is mildly old school but it is VERY useful both to understand its makeup and to use. Sadly because it is considered old school many of the online sources are out of date.
• http://x86asm.net/articles/fixed-point-arithmetic-and-tricks/
• http://gameprogrammer.com/4-fixed.html

Processor Cache Behavior / Memory

•  http://www.akkadia.org/drepper/cpumemory.pdf
•  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache
•     http://igoro.com/archive/gallery-of-processor-cache-effects/

Bit Shifting

• http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/bitwise_operators.html
• useful hacks (use carefully)
• http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/539836/emulating-variable-bit-shift-using-only-constant-shifts
• http://guru.multimedia.cx/avoiding-branchesifconditionals/

Branch Prediction

• This may be lower level that people think they need to go… but they’d be wrong. Understanding how the hardware you’re programming for treats branches can affect performance to a HUGE degree… far more than most programmers may appreciate
• http://cellperformance.beyond3d.com/articles/2006/04/background-on-branching.html
• http://igoro.com/archive/fast-and-slow-if-statements-branch-prediction-in-modern-processors/
• http://www.k8gu.com/ece.umn.edu/documents/classes/ece362-branch-prediction.pdf
• http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~gupta/teaching/203A-09/My6.pdf

Sorting

• This isn’t really low-level but something i consider “basic” and its an area where many programmers are simply lacking in understanding. Do yourself a favor and play around with this link, read the links it sends you to for each algorithm and try to grasp when each might be used, the properties as described and the next time you need to sort something… consult it.
• http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/
• another good link with sub links: http://corte.si//posts/code/visualisingsorting/index.html
• a funny one (but still strangely useful), the bubble sort dance:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyZQPjUT5B4

PS: I found these links somewhere on the net, i don't remember it now. Credit goes to respective authors