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Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

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4.8 out of 5

299 global ratings

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Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

byCharles Petzold

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Top positive review

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Engaging, interesting, and challenging

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 15, 2023

A great read! Whether you are a computer scientist or just a curious person, this book does an outstanding job of building from the simplest of codes - a child using a flashlight on the window to communicate with their friend across the street - to the complexities of modern computers, this book reads like an approachable anthology of the use and development of code, and how it has impacted our life and the evolution of computing.

Top critical review

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Capital-u Unnecessary

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2023

A ton of garbage with some redeemable bits, mostly when the author goes on diatribes about historical facts of computing. Otherwise makes simple concepts incredibly overcomplicated, relies entirely on confusing diagrams, skips detail where detail is needed and adds it where it isn't, spends enormous amounts of time doing frivolous and irrelevant things with circuitry and is just generally written in a frustratingly flippant way as if it was all incredibly simple and surely you understand all this immediately, right?

Read this if you want to be angry. I sincerely doubt 99% of these reviewers have actually gotten through this thing.

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299 total ratings, 31 with reviews

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From the United States

Engaging, interesting, and challenging

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 15, 2023

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A great read! Whether you are a computer scientist or just a curious person, this book does an outstanding job of building from the simplest of codes - a child using a flashlight on the window to communicate with their friend across the street - to the complexities of modern computers, this book reads like an approachable anthology of the use and development of code, and how it has impacted our life and the evolution of computing.

A book that brought me closer to computers

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 23, 2023

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It is a great book to understand the computer technology. it builds the story from the basics of materials science, electronics, physics, maths and takes you on the journey of the past to present.
It is a must read for anyone who is curious about how this machine came into existence.

Amazon Customer

every programmer should read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 18, 2023

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How does computer works ? What is the difference between hardware and software ? What is assembly language ? What is a high level computer language ? This is the best book I have ever found to answer these questions. It’s really an amazing book .

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 29, 2023

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Excellent!

Jonathan Clark Richards

Take my money already!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 19, 2023

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Not sure what else to add here as the title says it all. Buy it if you have even the slightest interest in how computers work.

Some downsides is that the copy I got has creases in the cover and bent pages. I'm also not a fan of the cover color. But none of that makes this book any less awesome. I can just buy another one and gift this one.

One person found this helpful

First programmer?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 6, 2023

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As an ardent reader of the past 1st edition, I was fairly excited to get the latest version. That is, until I encountered the history chapter of the new edition.

For one thing, what I do NOT understand in this second edition is the newly added description of August Ada Byron (countless of Lovelace). The author claims it was Babbage who was the first programmer to design the engines, not Ada. I am not trying to start a futile argument here about who has more or fewer contributions, etc.

What I am trying to assert here is that it is undisputed that Ada (unless the new evidence arises) left *the very first demonstration* of what this seemingly imaginary machine, which didn't even physically exist, was capable of through her program. Because Babbage designed the engine itself, that doesn't automatically put him in the position of a programmer (despite Babbage being a brilliant engineer/scientist and may have had a simple or detailed program in his mind). However, it was Ada who gave a definite touch to programming concepts that ultimately led to modern-day programming. Ada deserves more recognition than a mere "tutorial writer," and she is certainly entitled to the title she deserves.

Other than that, like the previous edition, this book is a must-read for people who are from related/unrelated fields. I always loved the 1st edition, and I would do too with the 2nd. Still, I think history should always be approached with more care, particularly if matters have potential controversies.

21 people found this helpful

Michael Donoghue

If you only buy one technical computer book, this is it

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 31, 2023

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Disclaimer: I owned the first edition for years and read it a dozen times, mainly for pleasure since it’s not only informative but also just enjoyable to read. I’m a professional software architect and have dozens of textbooks on computer science and engineering so I’ve been around the block.

This is the kind of book I would buy all for all my friends (if I had more than a couple) and family members (if they were even slightly into computers, which they aren’t sadly). Petzold does an exceptional job at describing digital logic and guides you through building a conceptual CPU from very first principles.

I think his bottom up approach is the way to go and has helped me understand complex topics in an extremely simple way. When I’m not reading fiction, this is my go to bedtime reading.

The second edition has about 100 more pages than the first and some content has been completely reworked and it’s great.

If you ever had even a passing interest in knowing how computers work at a very fundamental level, get this book!

7 people found this helpful

A great book on the basics of computing

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 14, 2023

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I never read the first edition of Code, but this seems to be an improvement. I'm only 100 pages in, but it is quite readable and I like the author's pace - though there's alot of material that's covered, the pace is relaxed and the reader usually won't feel overwhelmed. A minor flaw that I've noticed is that the physics underlying some of the engineering wasn't explained in detail, and that would've helped with regards to be being able to understand the circuits. On the whole, this book seems to be great, and I'd highly recommend it to programmers trying to understand the software-hardware interface.

3 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 11, 2023

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This was a gift for my son and he liked it :)

Susan G. Williamson

This book is for computer science students.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 20, 2023

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A gift for my grandson. Thanks.

One person found this helpful

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