# What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory by Ulrich Drepper

5 Hacker News commenters recommended What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory by Ulrich Drepper and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Ulrich Drepper's classic explains how memory and caches work, and people keep sharing it as a helpful read. Critics say the title overstates who needs these details.

## Why people recommend it

- Classic reference on memory (2 comments): "Ulrich Drepper's classic What every Programmer should know about Memory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49046225)) "the best thing Ulrich Drepper ever did" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48274184))
- Helpful for anyone interested (2 comments): "it's good enough to deserve one more link to it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46948702)) "this could be helpful for anyone interested" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46403850))

## What people warn about

- Title overstates who needs it (1 comments): "the title was wrong when it came out - not every programmer needs to know those details" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50324889))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom](https://hackerapproved.com/p/crafting-interpreters.md): 60 recommend
- [Clean Code by Robert C. Martin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/clean-code.md): 31 recommend
- [The Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pragmatic-programmer.md): 28 recommend
- [How to Design Programs by Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/how-to-design-programs.md): 18 recommend
- [Mastering Emacs by Mickey Petersen](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mastering-emacs.md): 17 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory by Ulrich Drepper", https://hackerapproved.com/p/what-every-programmer-should-know-about-memory/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).