Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective. Flies a little under the radar. I'm definitely biased here (TA'ed the class that originated it). But by the end of it I left with a decent understanding of x86-64 assembly to the point that I could hand compile C functions. And also a rough and ready understanding of how shells, malloc, and web servers work.
I am planning to go through this book later this year. Can you help me understand what the difference is between this and Hennessey Patterson's book Computer Organization and Architecture? Like, why would/should I study x86_64/ARM/RISC V/MIPS/anything else? Is there a difference in approach or the architecture?
They are complementary and not the same. I very highly recommend that you get and study "Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, 3rd edition" since it is a very practical and detail oriented book(i.e. no hand-waving and full of code for x86-64) for the Programmer. Hennessy & Patterson's "Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface" is more high-level with not enough depth while their "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" is full on theory book.
I just took a course at my college based upon this book and 15-213 although I believe we follow a less intense version than 15-213 (one of the variation the book recommends).
It's really helpful that I actually bought a copy to keep. (I don't really buy textbooks, I just get them from the library.)
