It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career.
What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a "deep" 31-stage pipeline?
Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside.
As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it?
A primer for those with a less formal background.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ken_g6 on Saturday October 31 2015, @04:19AM
I saw this video about the same general topic [youtube.com] recently.
My favorite text article about this topic has been this: http://www.emulators.com/docs/pentium_1.htm [emulators.com] An oldie, but a goodie. I haven't decided if this new article is better or not.