Concepts list

reference/list-of-concepts.md

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+# List of Topics for Concepts
+
+This is a preliminary list of topics to be implemented in the x86-64-assembly track.
+
+Most of the topics should map onto a Concept and have its own Concept Exercise.
+
+## Introductory Topics
+
+### General-Purpose Registers:
+- what is a register
+- accessing 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit portion of a register
+- callee-saved and caller-saved registers
+
+### Functions:
+- section .text
+- extern and global
+- calling and returning (CALL and RET)
+- calling conventions (registers)
+
+### Integers:
+- binary representation
+- signedness, sign extension (MOVZX, MOVSX, CDQ, CQO) and negation (NEG)
+- common arithmetic instructions (ADD, SUB, MUL/IMUL, DIV/IDIV)
+- bitwise instructions (NOT, OR, XOR, AND, SHR/SAR, SHL)
+
+### Conditionals/Loops:
+- most common flags in rFLAGs (CF, PF, ZF, SF, DF, OF)
+- comparison instructions (CMP and TEST)
+- labels and jump instructions (JMP and Jcc)
+- difference between signed and unsigned jumps
+- branchless instructions (CMOVcc and SETcc)
+- additional loop-control instructions (LOOP, LOOPE, LOOPNE)
+
+### Memory:
+- section .data/.rodata/.bss
+- RIP-relative addressing (REL)
+- BYTE/WORD/DWORD/QWORD
+- what is a pointer (labels)
+- accessing memory (indirection, LEA)
+- array offsets
+
+### Strings:
+- ASCII characters
+- strings are arrays ending in NULL
+- main string instructions (LODSx, STOSx, MOVSx, CMPSx, SCANSx, REP, REPE, REPNE)
+- direction flag (CLD, STD)
+
+### Floating-Point Numbers:
+- binary representation (IEEE-754)
+- XMM registers (MOVSx)
+- calling conventions
+- storing floating-point in memory
+- converting between integers and floating-points (CVTxx2xx and ROUND)
+- common arithmetic instructions (ADDSx, SUBSx, MULSx, DIVSx)
+- comparison instructions (COMISx and UCOMISx)
+- other common instructions (SQRTSx, )
+
+### Stack:
+- RSP and RBP
+- prologue and epilogue (PUSH and POP)
+- what CALL and RET really do
+- stack alignment
+
+## Advanced Topics
+
+### Macros and Assembler Directives
+- what is a macro and how is it different from functions
+- single-line macros (%define)
+- multi-line macros
+- %assign
+- times and %rep
+
+### SIMD
+- what are SIMD operations
+- XMM as SIMD registers
+- integer SIMD move (MOVDQA, PMOV)
+- packed integer arithmetic instructions (PADD, PSUB, PMUL)
+- packed integer horizontal reductions (PHADD, PHSUB)
+- packed floating-point arithmetic instructions (ADDPx, SUBPx, MULPx, DIVPx)
+- packed floating-point horizontal reductions (HADDPx, HSUBPx)
+- packed bitwise instructions (PAND, PANDN, POR, PXOR, PSR, PSL)
+- packed comparison instructions (PCMP, PTEST)
+- packed shifts (PSLLD, PSRLD)
+- other packed instructions (PABS, PMAX, PMIN)
+
+## Other topics (To be discussed)
+
+SYSCALLS?
+HEAP?