What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1 (2007)
Report a link problem
Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderDoes every programmer really need to know the physics behind dynamic ram? What every programmer should know is the latency of the various memory types (cache, RAM, virtual) and their respective sizes. Here's a nice graphic: http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/what-your-computer-does...
A few observations about what's changed since this was written: The layout shown in Figure 2.1 with a traditional shared Front Side Bus linking CPUs to the northbridge is a long-dead design, having been retired from mainstream products by AMD around 2003 and by Intel around 2008. Since then, the northbridge and memory controllers have been on the CPU die(s) for almost all products. AMD's Zen 2 and later desktop/server CPUs split the northbridge back out to a separate die…
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=What%20every%20programmer%20sh...
The entire article is also available at: http://people.redhat.com/drepper/cpumemory.pdf
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 3
- Total points
- 604
- Total comments
- 133
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-12-09 | What every programmer should know about memory | hhm | 15 | 0 |
| 2010-06-01 | What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1First breakout | nreece | 117 | 4 |
| 2010-07-13 | What every programmer should know about memoryBest thread | haskellito | 129 | 37 |
| 2013-09-02 | What every programmer should know about memory | anuragramdasan | 3 | 0 |
| 2014-03-02 | What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory (2007) | biafra | 2 | 0 |
| 2015-11-20 | What every programmer should know about memory (2007) | jimsojim | 119 | 53 |
| 2017-09-21 | What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1 (2007) | kercker | 90 | 12 |
| 2020-08-17 | What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1 | searchableguy | 4 | 1 |
| 2021-01-25 | What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1 (2007)Latest 20+ point return | vincent_s | 123 | 26 |
| 2025-01-21 | What every programmer should know about memory, Part 1 (2007) | stefanvdw1 | 2 | 0 |