Complete migration towards Mac OS X I’m in The Official Ubuntu Book
2006 08 26

Mac OS X Internals by Amit Singh

Apple Add comments

Today I bought Mac OS X Internals by Amit Singh of kernelthread.com fame.

It’s a massive 1640 pages long book and Amit has been receiving rave reviews for its technical accuracy and readability.

The books covers all aspects of Mac OS X including:

  • The history of Mac OS X
  • The Mach microkernel
  • The BSD, X, Carbon, Cocoa and Java application environments
  • The PowerPC and Intel processors
  • EFI
  • System startup (launchd for instance)
  • Process and memory management
  • IPC
  • The HFS+ file system

Wish me courage :-)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Add comments

written by avinash

15 Responses to “Mac OS X Internals by Amit Singh”

  1. aadil says:
    August 27th, 2006 at 00:52

    1640 pages!!! You are sooo dead if you hope to use that book for reference. However, it does make a good dumb bell. ;)

  2. avinash says:
    August 27th, 2006 at 07:39

    in fact, I’ll really try to read it (more or less) from cover to cover… I know I’ll refer to Mac OS X during my “Systems Software” class at the University of Mauritius and I don’t want to say something stupid to my students :-)

  3. tarriq says:
    August 28th, 2006 at 20:33

    1640 pages!! wow
    lecturers do pull up a lot of work for us

    i’ve was in that class last year
    its been rather inspiring!!! :)

  4. avinash says:
    August 29th, 2006 at 06:35

    Exactly. Lecturers really spend a lot of time reading new things to have nice stories for avid students…

    More seriously, it’s perhaps the most interesting part of being a lecturer (apart from doing the actual lecture which is fantastic if you are a born performer :-) ). Reading books and learning and trying new things is great. Coming up with new ideas is even greater.

  5. Shane says:
    August 29th, 2006 at 10:42

    May I sit in one of your classes when I’m in Mauritius next? :D

  6. avinash says:
    August 29th, 2006 at 13:32

    Why not? ;-)

  7. tarriq says:
    August 29th, 2006 at 15:57

    There are only a handful of lecturers i know who are good “performers” and try to innovate ;)

    we still lack a comon platform for discussions between lecturers and students

    and also if there was a way in which students ( 5-6 students) could work together with lecturers on a specific project or conducting research would be really nice.. ;)

  8. Shane says:
    August 30th, 2006 at 13:42

    tarriq: I think you get to do that if you splurge for a postgrad degree :D

  9. avinash says:
    August 30th, 2006 at 19:06

    By the way, do not forget that the undergrad project is also a good opportunity to work “together” with your supervisor…

  10. Olivier says:
    August 31st, 2006 at 09:35

    I’ve been in an undergrad “research” program, which was more like free labour for the university =)
    Check it out: http://pyre.third-bit.com/2005-fall/uilib.pdf
    My team mates and myself built an online-marking tool for profs, TA’s and students.

    Avinash, maybe you could start an undergrad “project” course, whereby you’d supervise students building applications for internal use (or research, or privately funded projects, for startups for instance).
    http://pyre.third-bit.com/past.html

    It was a great experience for me before graduating to really understand what its like building software with a big enough scale. Also, in university, we build things the “right way” as opposed to “the way to make it work”. =)

  11. avinash says:
    August 31st, 2006 at 13:51

    Hi Olivier,

    Interesting idea to ponder… By coincidence, one external examiner from the UK told us more or less the same thing i.e. we should give students the opportunity to work on real-life systems before they actually join the work force.

    We are thinking of setting up a kind of “Junior Entreprise”. I quote:

    A Junior-Entreprise or Junior Entreprise (JE) is a not-for-profit professional students’ association which provides services to companies mainly to give work experience to its members. The system was created in Europe to compensate for the lack of internships and practical knowledge application in higher education, the first JE created being the Junior ESSEC Conseil in France in 1967. Junior Entreprises help students applying the theoretical studies they follow in their schools in the corporate world.

    I’ll keep you informed.

  12. LaSh says:
    August 31st, 2006 at 20:21

    You’ve been tagged. :)

    [ Sorry I didn't find any other appropriate space to let you know - see my blog if you wish to know the details ]

  13. LaSh says:
    August 31st, 2006 at 20:25

    I remember leaving a comment here, but it didn’t seem to have been submitted. Anyway, just letting you know that I’ve tagged you on my blog, feel free to drop by for details ;)

  14. avinash says:
    August 31st, 2006 at 21:22

    Hi LaSh,

    I’ll only briefly mention 6 random things about myself but I won’t bother keeping the tag going (sorry…)

    (1) I studied in Réunion Island for 2 years then moved to Lyon in France for a further 3 years,

    (2) I was born in 1973 in Candos Hospital in Quatre-Bornes,

    (3) The MacBook I’m using to type this is the first computer that I bought which has an Intel processor - all other computers I acquired had AMD processors…

    (4) I am a massive fan of electronic music ranging from Kraftwerk (70’s) to Autechre (2000’s),

    (5) I like good wine, especially French wine,

    (6) I always wanted (and somewhat still want) to be a pilot.

  15. Olivier says:
    September 3rd, 2006 at 09:02

    Although the comments have now become unrelated to the subject matter, here’s an article I found interesting off reddit
    http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/undergrad-cs

Leave a Reply