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C Compilation Pipeline

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Advanced C Programming for Systems Development

A hardcore curriculum for programmers who want to build operating systems, compilers, databases, and embedded firmware. We move fast through basics and dive deep into what makes C the backbone of computing infrastructure.
Course Duration: 14-18 weeks (self-paced)
Target Outcome: Systems Programmer / Kernel Developer / Embedded Engineer
Prerequisites: Prior programming experience (any language)
Primary Focus: Low-level systems programming, memory mastery, performance

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Why C in 2025?

Powers Everything

Linux kernel, Windows NT, macOS, PostgreSQL, Redis, Git, Python runtime — all C

Zero Abstraction Cost

Direct hardware access, predictable performance, no garbage collection pauses

Systems Foundation

Understanding C = understanding how computers actually work

Career Leverage

Kernel engineers, firmware developers, and compiler writers are rare and well-paid

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Course Philosophy

This is NOT a gentle introduction. We assume you can already program in some language. We’ll cover syntax quickly and spend 80% of our time on the hard stuff: memory, pointers, undefined behavior, concurrency, and real-world systems code.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    C PROGRAMMING MASTERY                                     │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                              │
│  TRACK 1: RAPID FOUNDATIONS    TRACK 2: MEMORY MASTERY                      │
│  ──────────────────────────    ─────────────────────────                    │
│  □ C Syntax Speed Run          □ Pointers Deep Dive                         │
│  □ Build Systems & Toolchain   □ Memory Layout & Segments                   │
│  □ Debugging Fundamentals      □ Dynamic Memory Management                  │
│  □ Modern C (C11/C17/C23)      □ Memory Debugging Tools                     │
│                                                                              │
│  TRACK 3: ADVANCED CONCEPTS    TRACK 4: SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING                │
│  ──────────────────────────    ────────────────────────────                 │
│  □ Preprocessor Mastery        □ System Calls & POSIX                       │
│  □ Data Structures in C        □ Binary I/O & File Formats                  │
│  □ Function Pointers           □ Process & Thread Programming               │
│  □ Bitwise Operations          □ Network Programming                        │
│  □ Undefined Behavior          □ Shared Memory & IPC                        │
│                                                                              │
│  TRACK 5: PERFORMANCE          TRACK 6: SECURITY & HARDENING               │
│  ────────────────────          ────────────────────────────                 │
│  □ Cache-Friendly Code         □ Secure Coding Practices                    │
│  □ SIMD & Vectorization        □ Input Validation                           │
│  □ Lock-Free Programming       □ Buffer Overflow Prevention                 │
│  □ Profiling & Optimization    □ Compiler Security Features                 │
│                                                                              │
│  TRACK 7: REAL-WORLD PROJECTS                                               │
│  ─────────────────────────────                                              │
│  □ Build a Memory Allocator    □ Build a HTTP Server                        │
│  □ Build a Shell               □ Kernel Module Development                  │
│  □ Build a Database                                                         │
│                                                                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Track 1: Rapid Foundations

Speed run through C syntax for experienced programmers.
Duration: 4-6 hours
1

Types & Variables

Primitive types, type sizes, integer promotion, implicit conversions
2

Control Flow

if/else, switch, loops — quickly, we assume you know these patterns
3

Functions

Declaration vs definition, calling conventions, pass-by-value
4

Arrays & Strings

Array decay, null termination, string.h essentials
5

Structs & Unions

Memory layout, padding, alignment, bit fields
Duration: 3-4 hours
C Compilation Pipeline
1

Compilation Pipeline

Preprocessing → Compilation → Assembly → Linking
2

GCC/Clang Deep Dive

Warning flags, optimization levels, sanitizers
3

Make & CMake

Professional build system configuration
4

Static & Dynamic Libraries

Creating and linking .a and .so files
Duration: 3-4 hours
1

GDB Mastery

Breakpoints, watchpoints, examining memory, reverse debugging
2

Core Dumps

Generating and analyzing crash dumps
3

Compiler Diagnostics

Understanding and fixing warnings
Duration: 4-6 hours
1

C11 Features

_Static_assert, _Generic, _Alignas, anonymous structs/unions
2

C11 Concurrency

Atomics, stdatomic.h, threads.h, memory ordering
3

C17 Clarifications

Bug fixes and standard clarifications
4

C23 New Features

typeof, nullptr, constexpr, [[attributes]], #embed, auto

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Track 2: Memory Mastery

The heart of C programming — understanding memory completely. C memory layout and pointer fundamentals
Duration: 8-10 hours
1

Pointer Fundamentals

Address-of, dereference, pointer arithmetic
2

Pointers to Pointers

Double pointers, arrays of pointers, 2D arrays
3

Const Correctness

const pointer vs pointer to const, deep const
4

Void Pointers

Generic programming in C, type erasure
5

Restrict Keyword

Aliasing rules, optimization hints
Duration: 6-8 hours
1

Process Memory Layout

Text, data, BSS, heap, stack segments
2

Stack Deep Dive

Stack frames, calling conventions, buffer overflows
3

Heap Internals

How malloc works under the hood
4

Static & Global Storage

Initialization order, thread-local storage
Duration: 6-8 hours
1

malloc/calloc/realloc/free

Proper usage patterns, common mistakes
2

Memory Leak Prevention

RAII patterns in C, cleanup strategies
3

Custom Allocators

Arena allocators, pool allocators, slab allocators
4

Memory-Mapped Files

mmap for high-performance I/O
Duration: 4-6 hours
1

Valgrind

Memory leak detection, invalid access detection
2

AddressSanitizer

Compile-time instrumentation for memory errors
3

MemorySanitizer

Detecting uninitialized memory reads
4

Custom Debug Allocators

Building your own memory debugging infrastructure

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Track 3: Advanced Concepts

Master the features that separate junior from senior C programmers.
Duration: 4-6 hours
  • Macro hygiene and best practices
  • X-macros for code generation
  • Include guards and pragma once
  • Conditional compilation strategies
  • Variadic macros
  • Stringification and token pasting
Duration: 10-12 hours
  • Linked lists with intrusive containers
  • Hash tables (open addressing, chaining)
  • Binary trees and red-black trees
  • Generic containers with void pointers
  • Linux kernel container_of macro
Duration: 4-6 hours
  • Function pointer syntax and typedef
  • Callback patterns
  • Jump tables and dispatch tables
  • Closures with context pointers
  • Plugin architectures and dynamic loading
  • Virtual tables (OOP in C)
Duration: 4-6 hours
  • Bitwise operators and truth tables
  • Bit manipulation patterns (set, clear, toggle, check)
  • Bit flags and enums
  • Data packing and bit fields
  • Common algorithms (popcount, leading/trailing zeros)
  • Hardware register access patterns
Duration: 6-8 hours
  • Signed overflow
  • Null pointer dereference
  • Buffer overflows
  • Use after free
  • Data races
  • Strict aliasing violations
  • Unsequenced modifications
  • How compilers exploit UB for optimization

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Track 4: Systems Programming

Real-world systems development with POSIX APIs.
Duration: 8-10 hours
  • User space vs kernel space
  • System call mechanics (syscall instruction)
  • Error handling with errno
  • POSIX standards and portability
Duration: 6-8 hours
  • Binary vs text I/O
  • Endianness and byte swapping
  • Struct packing and alignment
  • Portable serialization
  • File format design patterns
  • Memory-mapped I/O with mmap
Duration: 8-10 hours
  • Low-level I/O: open, read, write, close
  • File descriptors and the fd table
  • Buffered vs unbuffered I/O
  • Memory-mapped I/O
  • Directory operations
  • inotify for file watching
Duration: 8-10 hours
  • fork(), exec(), wait() family
  • Process creation and termination
  • Signal handling
  • Daemon processes
  • Process groups and sessions
Duration: 10-12 hours
  • POSIX threads (pthreads)
  • Thread creation and lifecycle
  • Mutexes and condition variables
  • Reader-writer locks
  • Thread-local storage
  • Thread pools
Duration: 10-12 hours
  • Socket programming fundamentals
  • TCP client/server architecture
  • UDP programming
  • Non-blocking I/O
  • select/poll/epoll
  • High-performance event loops
Duration: 6-8 hours
  • Pipes and FIFOs
  • POSIX shared memory
  • Message queues
  • Semaphores
  • Memory barriers and atomics

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Track 5: Performance Engineering

Write code that screams.
Duration: 6-8 hours
  • CPU cache hierarchy (L1, L2, L3)
  • Cache lines and false sharing
  • Data-oriented design
  • Structure of Arrays vs Array of Structures
  • Prefetching strategies
Duration: 6-8 hours
  • SSE, AVX, AVX-512 intrinsics
  • Auto-vectorization
  • Alignment requirements
  • SIMD programming patterns
Duration: 8-10 hours
  • Memory ordering and barriers
  • Compare-and-swap operations
  • Lock-free queues and stacks
  • Hazard pointers
  • RCU (Read-Copy-Update)
Duration: 6-8 hours
  • perf and Linux performance tools
  • Flame graphs
  • Micro-benchmarking
  • Compiler optimization reports
  • PGO (Profile-Guided Optimization)

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Track 6: Security & Hardening

Write C code that resists exploitation.
Duration: 8-10 hours
  • Buffer overflow prevention
  • Safe string handling (strlcpy, snprintf)
  • Integer overflow detection
  • Format string attack prevention
  • Input validation patterns
  • Memory safety patterns
Duration: 4-6 hours
  • Stack protectors (-fstack-protector)
  • FORTIFY_SOURCE
  • PIE and ASLR
  • RELRO and GOT hardening
  • AddressSanitizer and UBSan
  • Static analysis tools

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Track 7: Real-World Projects

Build serious infrastructure from scratch.
Duration: 15-20 hoursBuild a custom malloc implementation:
  • Free list management
  • Coalescing free blocks
  • Splitting blocks
  • Best fit vs first fit
  • Thread-safe allocation
Duration: 15-20 hoursBuild a functional shell:
  • Command parsing
  • Process creation and management
  • Pipes and redirection
  • Job control (background processes)
  • Built-in commands
Duration: 20-30 hoursBuild a persistent key-value store:
  • B-tree implementation
  • Page-based storage
  • Write-ahead logging
  • Crash recovery
  • Concurrent access
Duration: 15-20 hoursBuild a multi-threaded HTTP server:
  • HTTP/1.1 protocol parsing
  • Request routing
  • Static file serving
  • Connection pooling
  • Thread pool architecture
Duration: 15-20 hoursWrite loadable kernel modules:
  • Kernel development environment
  • Character device drivers
  • /proc filesystem entries
  • Kernel memory allocation
  • Kernel synchronization primitives

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Learning Resources

Primary Text

“The C Programming Language” (K&R) “Expert C Programming” (Van Der Linden)

Advanced

“Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective” “Linux Kernel Development” (Love)

Reference

C23 Standard (N3096) POSIX.1-2017 Specification

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Assessment Strategy

1

Coding Challenges

Weekly implementation challenges testing specific concepts
2

Code Reviews

Peer review focusing on memory safety and style
3

Projects

Five major projects demonstrating systems programming competence
4

Technical Interview Prep

Mock interviews covering C-specific questions and system design

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Ready to Start?

Begin Track 1

Start with C Syntax Speed Run →

Modern C Features

Learn C11/C17/C23 features →

Skip to Memory

Already know basics? Jump to Pointers →

Security Focus

Learn secure coding practices →