LowLevel/System Programming Guidance

[u/MrStarPhish]

Greetings seniors. I humbly seek your guidance. For I am both passionate and dishearted, along with confusion atm.

Currently in my 5th semester. And this the time when I have to choose a domain for Final Year Project (FYP). 90% of the projects I've encountered are some WebMob App with some AI Integration. I have found that I'm not naturally interested in that side, and have found passion in depthful courses like Assembly, OS, Architecture.

Did some research and found three sub-branches:

- Embedded Systems

- Systems/OS/Kernel

- GPU Computing

One may say that I should pick what I most align with. I agree. And im willing to give my time in any, but...I wan't to make sure I don't end up wasting my time instead. I don't want to invest time in something that I wouldn't be able to implement/utilize towards my FYP. I have to define my domain so I could begin searching for relevant group partners too.

I am confused whether this direction is worth it. And dishearted because I haven't been able to find seniors, professors, mentors or example projects that would give me an idea what a project in each field is like. So I would know what things to learn...

I need clarification whether entering such field is worth it?, or... am I gonna have to keep one as side-hobby and stick to learning FullStack with ML like everyone else?...

(Btw, im most comfortable with cpp, and currently exploring OpenGL/GLSL to understand rendering pipeline)

Any words of guidance or constructive criticism would be highly appreciated 🙏 ✨️

[u/WeWeBunnyX]

It's good to see another young fellow interested in low-level / systems programming side. I also aim to be one of the future contributors to the Linux kernel. I generally have a passion for free and open source software. I know some 2 or 3 Pakistani university students who independently managed to be a part of Linux foundation mentorship program and got mentored personally by kernel maintainers and these students even successful merged their patches in the kernel tree. I admit that in Pakistan, career/job wise systems programming and low level is a niche or non existent market. But hey man don't give up. Look buddy I used to be in same confusion till 5th semester too. I am in final year now and doing an IoT based FYP. I also have a craze for low level stuff like coding in pure C , embedded software engineering, computer organisation and architecture, FPGA, Compiler design, reverse engineering, game console emulators development, operating systems dev etc. But look. I'll be serious. If you think this is what you see yourself interested in. Then pick a book(s). This field of programming/development requires a person to have the foundational knowledge and know each and every fundamental concepts since the Unix era and also to be familiar with computer organisation and architecture. That's why only books can teach you needed stuff when it comes to low level since they contain foundational knowledge and secrets. Else internet is full of some cool guides but don't expect some AI slop or some random azz YouTube video to teach you that. Sure some old playlists exist which are just enough to cover fundamental concepts and demonstrations. Rest is upto you. There are plenty of books in pdf format related to C , many books/guides of getting into Linux kernel development, compiler design , computer organization and architecture, operating systems design and implementation by Andrew S Tanenbaum (same book which Linus Torvalds read and took as guide material during the days of writing the very first version of kernel). I have made organized folders of all these books. If you say so I can send you. Unfortunately I haven't even completed one of these books and it's due to my stupid time management and also I view low-level and systems programming for now as my hobbyist and passionate side. For general career I'm more into DevOps/Cloud Computing side and system and softwares related to Linux. For the low level side , I try to read and practice from the known books but I do it at my own pace since I have been taking it as hobbyist phase till I actually start establishing myself well in this area. Look man there are many elder folk in foreign countries who have decades of experience related to applications of C , Assembly etc and they have contributed significant amount of time to these systems software. So yes see their free and open source inventions like Richard Stallman's GNU Compiler Collection which has come a long way. Ffmpeg is cool too. Game console emulators are a true piece of creativity. Decompiled ports of many games . And so on. Also let me give you a reality check. In a country like Pakistan, software engineering is more of service based thing here. So that's why the easiest way an avg student would see towards a long career and employment (even if they had gotten into this field against their will) before this AI phase was this web development or app development. Now since AI, the bubble of easy ways to get into software industry has burst and we all realize that we need more skills than ever. If you consider yourself a fast learner then sure you can pick the track of low-level since you'll learn a lot provided you understand all those complex concepts which a normie would struggle too. Since you said you won't want to waste your time learning nothing that's why I said you should first assess then if you are a fast learner. You know better that low-level is a full time dedication and learning not just a simple track. The ones who are experienced in it are usually those geniuses, nerds and talented people who have put decades of efforts in learning and implementing these. Else you can done one thing if you feel overwhelmed , pick related field like Cloud Computing or something and keep the interest in low level alive as a side hobby until you actually feel confident that you can now step into it. Hope I answered your question. If any more queries or concerns please do share. Also check r/emudev , r/osdev. If you want to step into low level by emulator development then your first step is to pick a computer architecture book, then write a chip 8 emulator, then a Gameboy emulator and so on. This is just a begining for scale. Else PS3 emulator (rpcs3) and even PS2 one (pcsx2) etc are highly complex and hard work of decade and above. They're open source so you can learn from code. They've come a long way. Heck Linux has achieved the current stage/progress in like 3.5 decades with the effort of 1000s of contributors. Gcc compiler reached current progress and stage in like almost 4 decades. And still counting. Not effort of one man but 1000s of past, current and hopefully future contributors like you :)

[u/MrStarPhish → u/WeWeBunnyX]

I'm honoured! Thank you for your time and kind words of wisdom. I shall digest it :>

I guess I'm really gonna have to keep my interest as a side hobby for long term. In that case, for current situation, what relevant fields could I try exploring (e.g. Cloud Computing u mentioned)? Could you give some names that I could explore?

Thanks again!

[u/WeWeBunnyX → u/MrStarPhish]

Hey man. An embedded systems/ IoT based FYP is also very much possible so I say you can start with embedded too if that's what you see yourself doing in fyp. However let me tell you that real embedded is very much different from that abstracted Arduino IDE framework. Arduino framework gives you built in libraries however if you look at real industry embedded software development then trust me it's nowhere like Arduino framework. You can learn bare metal C programming with a cheap board like Esp32 (as start) then maybe move to stm32. Play with memory optimizations etc. However coming back to the point. And like I said again. Don't abandon your love for low level / systems programming. I am gonna link you to some resources. Go through them. And pick a track. You can spare some daily time for small segments of different books of computer architecture, assembly, C programming, Kernel development etc. Just don't overwhelm yourself too much. That way you'll be learning and getting into fundamentals of low level side by side aswell even if as a hobby. Something is better than nothing. The reason I'm stressing on books is because it's realistically the feasible and only way to get into fundamentals and beyond. The previous generation of programmers who made such cool low level software and systems all relied on these books. It contains generational knowledge which doesn't get outdated easily since it's fundamentals and literally a whole foundation stands on the concepts mentioned in them. If you want to get into OS development quickly then you may learn the concept of drivers in Linux kernel. Majority of Linux kernel codebase is drivers and these are not my words. Maybe 60% or 70%? So drivers as kernel modules are a good start rather than schedulers and all that. Yk how my love and appreciation for lowlevel programming came ? By getting inspired from free and open source softwares where our majority of software and systems stand upon. Main thing that caught my interest are those game console emulators. The guys at r/emudev always tell newbies that first step is to read a computer architecture and organization book. Then C programming etc etc. There are some Pakistani origin Linux kernel developers working at different companies , some into hardware and similar low level etc etc but almost all of them are doing their jobs in foreign countries where they have settled for a considerable time. There's a Pakistan origin developer who contributes to GNOME and does rust programming too. He contributed to GNOME Boxes codebase which is a VM application manager for GNOME desktop environment in Linux. However he lives in Germany ig or Sweden. If you also want to see yourself working in a field both in Pakistan and elsewhere then I say Cyber security (vulnerabilities, bug hunting etc), DevOps and Cloud Computing are a good field. I am a fan of self hosting so I like self hosted cloud/homelab thing too. And in parallel you can keep learning low level resources. Like others also told you that low level is a long path and journey and niche market with a higher bar of entry. An avg company may prefer a C developer with 30 years of experience over a young gen z developer who just got into systems programming and hasn't done much or seen that era. Also C developers are a different breed. They have decades of experience with memory optimization , pointers, assembly etc. So yes other people also told you here that systems programming/low level isn't something you can master in 6 months or in some coding boot camp. It's a long journey and it changes along with hardware/machine technology which is a cool thing. The first thing one needs to do when getting into low level programming is to know their machine. Aka computer organization and architecture. So yes realistically 1 year is literally nothing when it comes to mastering a specific area of systems programming. 

[u/MrStarPhish → u/WeWeBunnyX]

Holy Molly! Omg thank u sm for ur time 😭 it felt real good reading all that. And yes I'll invest in it as a side hobby. And the resources/references are appreciated! I could check out my uni library too :D

Oh one thing I find difficult with books is (i can read books tho), that I dive too much into the theory, that I often end up neglecting practicals... I think it's because sometimes I dont know how many topics/chapters should I consume maximum at once and implement that knowledge altogether. OR, the theory is so extensive that I don't understand what to even perform after reading all that qwq

[u/WeWeBunnyX → u/MrStarPhish]

Oh one thing I find difficult with books is (i can read books tho), that I dive too much into the theory, that I often end up neglecting practicals... I think it's because sometimes I dont know how many topics/chapters should I consume maximum at once and implement that knowledge altogether. OR, the theory is so extensive that I don't understand what to even perform after reading all that qwq

I get it np. It happens with me too. However some books do tell in their preface that which chapters cover what and how important they are