Goal
Build the substrate every later path stands on: how computers represent text and time, how to reason about cost, what the operating system and the network actually do, and how the one tool used every single day works underneath. The method throughout is the KB's house method: read the concept, then build the thing until it stops being a diagram. Everything here pays compound interest — nothing in the later paths is learnable properly without it.
Modules
1. Text, correctly
- Read: Unicode & text encoding.
- Do: UTF-8 codec + text-processing CLI.
- Proof: the codec's acceptance suite passes (é through the family emoji); you can explain why "length" has three answers without notes.
2. Time, honestly
- Read: Time, timezones & datetime.
- Do: DST-safe scheduler.
- Proof: the scheduler's acceptance suite passes — Kiritimati, the half-hour zone, both DST edges, a year of "daily at 02:30" without a double-fire; "how do we store a future meeting time?" is answered by the passing tzdb-update test, not a paragraph.
3. Algorithms & data structures
- Read: Algorithms & data structures.
- Do: Interview-prep track — structures-from-scratch milestones first; the full pattern ladder continues in the background for the whole curriculum (spaced re-solves included).
- Proof: per the track's subject — patterns solved within quota, explained aloud inside 25 minutes.
4. The operating system
- Read: Linux system deep dive.
- Do: Build your own shell.
- Proof: pipelines, redirection, job control, and signals all pass the subject's
checks;
straceon your own shell holds no surprises.
5. The network
- Read: Networking fundamentals.
- Do: Build a DNS resolver.
- Proof: the resolver walks from a root server to an authoritative answer, checked
against
dig; its two annotated captures (the resolver's own walk, and a full TCP + TLS + HTTP exchange), plus a whiteboard walk of what happens between typing a URL and pixels (the network half; the browser half comes in the full-stack path).
6. Version control, beneath the porcelain
- Read: Git internals.
- Do: Write Yourself a Git.
- Proof: two-way interop with stock git per the subject; you can recover a "lost" commit via the object store without the reflog.
Related
- The path to excellence — the master path; this is Stage 1.
- Language craft — picks up the moment the toolkit exists.
- Software craft — the design discipline layered on top.
- Themes drawn on: Fundamentals, Algorithms, System Administration.