Systems Programming (C and Zig)

reading · we frame, you read MIT or the canonical taught · we author, no canonical fits ↺ spirals back to earlier lessons

Course locked

Complete Introduction to Algorithms and Complexity first.

This course unlocks once you've finished its prerequisite. Open prerequisite →

reading · 30 min + ~340 min canonical

Why C: The Machine You're Programming

You've been writing code in a language that lies to you — kindly, deliberately. When you write array.push(x) in Ruby or list.append(x) in Python, something is allocating memory, c…

primary Beej's Guide to C Programming

after L0 locked

reading · 40 min + ~340 min canonical L1

Pointers, Arrays, and the Memory Model

Every variable lives somewhere in memory. In most languages, you never need to know where — the language manages addresses for you. C exposes the address as a first-class value: a…

primary Beej's Guide to C Programming

after L1 locked

reading · 35 min + ~340 min canonical L1

Manual Memory Management: malloc, free, and the Bugs They Bring

So far the variables you've declared in C have lived in places the compiler chose for you — local variables on the stack, globals in a fixed region. Both have fixed lifetimes (loc…

primary Beej's Guide to C Programming

after L2 locked

reading · 35 min + ~340 min canonical L1

Structs, the Preprocessor, and the Compilation Pipeline

You can now do real C: declare variables, use pointers, allocate memory, free it. What you can't yet do is organise that work the way real C codebases do. Real codebases group rel…

primary Beej's Guide to C Programming

after L3 locked

reading · 45 min + ~340 min canonical

Zig: A Modern Take on Systems Programming

You've just spent four lessons learning C — pointers, manual memory, structs, the preprocessor, the four-stage build. Some of it felt clean (pointers, structs). Some of it felt li…

primary Beej's Guide to C Programming

after L4 locked

exercise reading · 15 min L1

Exercises: Easy (Warm-up)

- [ ] Implement strlen, strcpy, strcmp in C from scratch — Beej's Guide exercises - [ ] Write a C program that reads a file and counts lines, words, characters (mini wc) — File I/…

after L5 locked

exercise reading · 30 min L1

Exercises: Medium (Core)

- [ ] Implement a dynamic array (vector) in C with push, pop, get, automatic resizing — Manual memory management - [ ] Implement a linked list in C with insert, delete, reverse, f…

after L6 locked

exercise reading · 45 min L1

Exercises: Hard (Stretch)

- [ ] Write a memory allocator in C (mymalloc, myfree) using sbrk — Systems programming deep dive - [ ] Implement a concurrent-safe queue in Zig using atomics — Modern systems con…

after L7 locked

exercise reading · 60 min L1

Mini-Project

- [ ] Build a grep clone in C — read files, match patterns (fixed strings first, then basic regex), print matching lines with line numbers, support -i, -c, -r flags

after L8 locked

L10

project reading · 300 min L1

Project: Memory Inspector in C

Write a program that allocates variables on stack and heap, prints their addresses, and visualizes the memory layout. Show how arrays decay to pointers, demonstrate buffer overflo…

after L9 locked

L11

project reading · 300 min L1

Project: String Library in Zig

Implement a safe string library: mystrlen, myconcat, mysplit, mycontains. Use Zig's slice types and error unions instead of C's null-terminated strings. Compare the Zig and C appr…

after L10 locked

L12

assessment reading · 63 min L1

Self-Assessment: Systems Programming (C and Zig)

- [ ] What is the difference between stack and heap memory? When is each used? - [ ] What is a pointer in C? What is pointer arithmetic and why is it dangerous? - [ ] What is a bu…

after L11 locked

12 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.