Principles of Computer System Design: An Introduction

Some of the topics discussed in this book were truly helpful to my knowledge of systems design - the emphasis on Modularity, for instance, has instilled in me the importance of designing code so that I don't end up with a pile of spaghetti. I personally think that the book would be so much more helpful to the CS student if it offered some practice problems that actually have to do with code. Or else you're simply reading material that'll be too difficult to retain afterwards.

The book is not organized well. While the goal is to teach abstractions, too few and well thought out examples bring the abstractions back down to real world situations, thus the intrinsic value of an abstraction is not conveyed.There are also significant typos in the exercises that make some unsolvable. The order of events are reversed in some of these exercises, wherein the whole point of the exercise is lost and there is no answer.

I understand that these authors may be "living legends" in their fields - the text absolutely conveys a superior knowledge of the subject. However, the information is poorly organized and, overall, poorly conveyed.The reading is extremely dense and difficult to follow. While information density is never a bad thing - dissecting vast knowledge that is organized and described poorly is a terrible exercise in frustration. In the creation of this text, the authors set themselves up for a magnificent challenge: to convey their superlative knowledge of computer architecture in a way others may learn from effectively. I believe the authors ultimately failed this challenge.As a student, attempting to extract information from this book is extremely frustrating. Nearly every, single sentence reads somewhat like a vocabulary exercise - only the vocabulary and language is entirely relative to other densely worded and entirely relative bits of information within the text. If the authors intended this book to be stored within a piece of RAM and read by a machine I'm sure the text would be entirely useful. Unfortunately, this book is intended for human beings to construct a framework of knowledge. We do so by connecting new information with frameworks already established in reality. This text fails miserably to serve that purpose.I do not wish to disrespect the authors' authority on the subject, nor do I wish to undermine their writing ability. Nevertheless, after quickly realizing complete frustration with this text I feel compelled, as well as obligated, to share my experience with it.

The book is a great introduction to system design issues that are only taught at few courses in few universities. even-though they show up in computer systems everywhere. This is a very good and easy read for any one in computer industry . it describes all parts of computer systems and how they interact very well. The extension of the book is online and many chapters are available for free to download.The chapter on Naming is worth the money of the book. I have not seen the discussion of naming in such detail and simple terms anywhere,The authors are very well respected professors at MIT and have experience in operating systems and computer system since its early days.I highly recommend this book to any hardware or software student or professional engnineer.

I feel like the content is decent, It is hard to absorb all the information without being hands on. a HARD read cause its quite boring.

The real condition is worse than was described. It says "Shows signs of wear", but the front page fell off almost immediately. There are a lot of markings (on every page in most of the chapters), some of them unerasable, pen made.

Actually, I can see the authors' attempt to make it a "clear, structured" read, but they failed miserably. One of the most unpleasant technology books I had to deal with. At first it produces an impression of a well structured work with "what's ahead, how this chapter is organized, how that" - but that is all the authors are good at in terms of writing - organizing their outline. They fail terribly at being clear and easy on the reader. Two stars only for a lot of italicized words (definitions) - good idea, but otherwise wanted to give it just one star.

A little bit dry, but informative

My thoughts on the book:THE GOOD:1. It's nice to see a book that unifies recurring concepts in computer science into one textbook.2. The price is actually reasonable.3. You can learn a lot from this one book because it covers so much key material about systems.THE BAD:1. The print quality is somewhat poor, and the grey boxed sections are hard to read.2. Half the book is online, not in print. When I pay for a PRINTED textbook, I want the whole book printed. There's no reason why they can't print all the chapters. Even if they have to sell it as Part 1 and Part 2 to keep the books small, do it. Or print one big book. But print the whole thing.3. The phone problem in chapter 2 was hard to follow because we use cell phones today. Explain what "follow me" is and how it works before asking me to solve a problem about it. I've never heard of "follow me" and never used it in my life.4. The book makes certain trivial concepts more difficult to understand by being too general.Example: The discussion on context references in chapter 2 made my eyes glaze over. Just give an example and tell me what the context reference is. Chapter 2 could use a rework.5. Where are the SOLUTIONS? The book contains no answers to any of the problems. Unacceptable. Every textbook should have answers to the questions at the back of the book. If it's not a textbook, then don't ask questions. If you ask questions, then provide answers to them.

Beautiful book! one of those you get the most of after you've been working in the industry for a good 10 years.

Awesome Book!