&Notepad Will Crichton — September 9, 2018 I have a gripe with the phrase "systems programming." To me, it always seemed to unnecessarily combine two ideas: low-level programming (dealing with implementation details of the machine) and systems design (creating and managing a complex set of interoperating components). Why is that the case? How long has this been true? And what could we gain from redefining the idea of systems? 1970s: Improving on assembly Let’s travel back to the origins of moder...