Build a mental model of the entire computer stack — from electricity to logic gates to CPU to memory to operating system to applications. No prerequisites. No code. Just understanding. When you type `rails server`, here is what actually happens (at the systems level you are about to learn): The shell process forks a new process (Module 3). That process loads the Ruby interpreter (Module 7 — it's a program like any other). Ruby parses your code into an AST and compiles it to YARV bytecode (Module 7). The bytecode executes on the CPU (Module 2) using memory managed by the OS (Module 3). Puma opens a TCP socket (Module 4) and listens for HTTP requests. Every incoming connection allocates memory (Module 3), processes the request through your middleware stack, queries PostgreSQL over another TCP socket, and returns a response. Module 0 gives you the vocabulary to understand each piece. The rest of this curriculum fills in the details.
Companion to COMPUTERSYSTEMSMASTERYCURRICULUM.md Written April 30, 2026 — honest reflections, no sugar coating.
Approach: READ cover-to-cover
Approach: READ cover-to-cover
Work through each item before the checkpoint.
Draw a diagram of the complete computer stack from electricity to a running Rails application. Label each layer: transistors → gates → ALU → CPU → memory → OS → Ruby VM → Rails → …
5 lessons. Read in order; spiral back when you need to. By the end you'll have used the core ideas twice — once on the abstract, once on something you'll meet at work next week.