This only scratches the surface of the topic. Here's a fine article that talks about implementing a crash handler for JNI that goes into some of the more complex issues of multiple stacks, signal handling, stack unwinding, and calling across languages:
Aside: it's interesting how complex things which I learned in my younger years have become. From understanding how a car operates and being able to perform maintenance on it (compare rebuilding a carburetor or adjusting the timing to fuel injection and computer controlled distributorless electronic ignition, etc), to this topic, computer architecture. I'm glad I first learned these things when they were simpler. I think they might seem daunting to start learning about today. Though I guess like anything else, you start at the surface and keep digging till you're satisfied you understand the topic well enough. It's just that if you like to get to the bottom of those rabbit holes, they're all so much deeper now. Shrug.
p.s. I really enjoy reading the author's posts. They are often about something I'm familiar with, but it's neat to read someone writing about learning these things through fresh eyes. I also sometimes realize I don't know something as well as I thought. So thank you for sharing.
I think it's entirely appropriate that the article just scratches the surface; as you say, going into all the crazy details just makes the topic scary to a newcomer.
In college I met a guy that had co-authored Marathon, the first big hit for Bungie Studios. (This was Ryan Martell, not Jason Jones.) Ryan taught me how my C code compiled to assembly, and we were using 68K Macs back in that day, so it was pretty straightforward to understand once you had somebody to show you the basics.
Oh man, that was a revelation. Stepping through compiled code made concepts like pointers, stack/heap, registers, etc. just as clear as day. Those handful of hours with Ryan did more for my understanding of computing than the whole rest of my college courses. (Well, excepting my operating systems class, that one was good.)
Funny enough, my first job was working on an embedded operating system that didn't have source-level debugging, I had to debug in 68K assembly. So I'll just shout this out to the ether: thanks again, Ryan.
Conversely, I often think how lucky I am to have entered the industry at this point.
I learnt HTML by initially downloading websites using ctrl-s, and then editing them in notepad. I learnt HTML/CSS, and then JavaScript, and then other languages.
I had the advantage that I had a GUI text editor. While I'm now quite comfortable using VIM and command-line editors, I sometimes think if I had tried to become a developer before the advent of GUI editors the learning curve would have been too steep.
Perhaps under the hood things are more complex, but the interfaces have improved.
Interfaces have improved because the scope of the thing has grown.
I learnt HTML in 1995, I think shortly before HTML 2 was released. It was tiny back then. Using anything other than a text editor was inconceivable (I doubt there was any tooling back then). CSS and JavaScript didn't even exist. We had CGI for emailing form content, but most of the web was static.
By 1998 I was convinced that every app ever would be online. Today I've come full circle, avoiding web dev like the plague (too many tools) and stick with desktop and phone apps.
http://blog.httrack.com/blog/2013/08/23/catching-posix-signa...
Aside: it's interesting how complex things which I learned in my younger years have become. From understanding how a car operates and being able to perform maintenance on it (compare rebuilding a carburetor or adjusting the timing to fuel injection and computer controlled distributorless electronic ignition, etc), to this topic, computer architecture. I'm glad I first learned these things when they were simpler. I think they might seem daunting to start learning about today. Though I guess like anything else, you start at the surface and keep digging till you're satisfied you understand the topic well enough. It's just that if you like to get to the bottom of those rabbit holes, they're all so much deeper now. Shrug.
p.s. I really enjoy reading the author's posts. They are often about something I'm familiar with, but it's neat to read someone writing about learning these things through fresh eyes. I also sometimes realize I don't know something as well as I thought. So thank you for sharing.