STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), is an acronym that groups together different academic fields. The term STEM was coined by Judith Ramaley, president of Winona State University in Minnesota. Dr. Ramaley was an assistant director on the education and human resources directorate at the National Science Foundation from 2001 to 2004 at the time. Previously, the acronym was “SMET.” In today’s blog I will focus on low level programming — what is it and why it’s an important STEM career.
What is a low level programmer?
Low level programmers program in low-level languages, usually developing software that requires the fastest performance. Some examples are graphics rendering, high volume applications, like network servers and databases, or high frequency trading. Low level programming is more complex for humans, and more friendly to machines. Low-level programming encompasses programming languages that deliver instructions to machines. Low-level languages, like Assembly, Machine Code, and in more modern times C or Rust, can be very efficient in memory usage. Machine language is essentially instructions for a machine, written in binary. Binary consists of a series of 0s and 1s, the primary way computers store data and operate. Assembly language is essentially a language that is designed specifically for a type of processor. A processor is a chip that takes in instructions and/or data, and outputs these instructions into a language understandable by machines. Assembly code can also be created through a compilation of a language such as C.
What makes this position interesting and unique?
Technology can bring massive convenience to people’s lives, can provide life saving resources and bring relatives that live far apart together. According to triplebyte.com, these are the three major roles a low level programmer does:
- Embedded Devices-Firmware Engineer: “This is an engineer who works on software running on a custom, special purpose device. They probably have experience in C or C++ (although they may use other languages). They are comfortable with thinking about memory and power usage. They may have experience with real-time computing.”
- Linux Internals Engineer: “This is an engineer who is comfortable working with Linux (or Unix-like) operating systems at a low level. They may have experience working on device drivers. They are comfortable thinking about scheduling, interrupts, file systems system calls. They can explain Spectre and Meltdown, and how they were mitigated.”
- High-Performance Software Engineer: “This is an engineer who has experience working on high-performance applications, like databases and servers. They have experience in a systems language like C, C++, Go or Rust. They probably take a slower but precise approach to programming. Concurrency is an area of strength for them. They can explain how a B-Tree is cache efficient.”
Embedded Devices-Firmware Engineer can program life-saving medical devices. Linux Internals Engineer contribute to an amazing free and open sourced platform. While High-Performance Software Engineers can work on games, which can be therapeutic for a lot of people. These are some interesting ways low level programmers impact the world.
Low level programmers are unique because they have a deep understanding of how the language really works, all the way down to how the code gets turned into the machine code instructions that are executed by the computer. They’ll need to understand the capabilities of the specific hardware their code will run on, as well as any other systems that it interacts with, like disks or networks. According to coursereport.com, “Low-level programming is especially important in building for devices that need efficient power consumption ie. the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables devices”. Low-level programming requires the engineer to handle memory management. Most high-level languages with automated memory management are built off of low level languages. Ultimately, it is widely believed that Knowing what is going on under the hood makes you a better developer. Low-level programmer, have that unique trait.
What makes this role similar to others?
In both roles, high level or low level, programmers are using their ingenuity, math skills, and problem solving skills, to use code to solve real-life problems or build fun applications.
What is an example of a problem or a challenge someone in this role could solve or be asked to work on?
- Implementing device libraries to aid in the portability of device drivers.
- Bringing up low-level code on new SoCs. Work with other teams to support common SoCs and memory init code .
- Ability to write Linux drivers and to write directed tests for IP’s on a SoC.
- Design and develop technical features specific to the game.
- Design and develop game systems that contribute to the core technology framework.
- a low-level language”
What are some positives and negatives about this position? (According to codeforwin.org)
Negatives:
- Programs developed using low level languages are machine dependent and are not portable.
- It is difficult to develop, debug and maintain low level programs.
- Low level programs are more error prone.
- Low level programming usually results in poor programming productivity.
- Programmer must have additional knowledge of the computer architecture of particular machine, for programming in low level language.
Positives:
- Low level programming usually results in poor programming productivity.
- Programmers can utilize processor and memory in a better way using a low level language.
- In the lowest of levels, there is no need of any compiler or interpreters to translate the source to machine code. Thus, cutting compilation and interpretation time.
- Low level languages provide direct manipulation of computer registers and storage.
- Programmers can directly communicate with hardware devices.
- Total control over the code
- Can work directly on memory locations.
- Translated program requires less memory.
- Can make use of special hardware or special machine-dependent instructions(e.g. on the specific chip). (computerscience.gcse.guru)
Low level programming concepts and technologies:
- Proc filesystem
- Linux kernel
- ELF — readelf
- ELF -nm/objdump
- Advanced trees
- Graph
- Pathfinding
- x86 Assembly
- Signals
- Red-Black trees
- Strace
- Multithreading
- Advanced memory allocation
- Huffman coding
- Sockets
- N-ary trees
- Blockchain — Crypto, Data structures, mining, transactions, CLI
- Self-driving cars
Typical job titles include: Software engineer, embedded system programmer, SRE, Blockchain engineer.
In conclusion, there are many types of programmers. However, when there is a need for a fast program, or hardware specific code, perhaps manual memory allocation, or any of the things listed above. Low level programmers are accredited for making it work.
