The subtitle “A reference manual for people who design and build software” seems at odds with the description:
> This book won’t teach you how to actually make software […] It’s a manual that explains how the things you use everyday actually work. You don’t need to be technical to read this - there are a lot of pictures and diagrams to do the heavy lifting. You just need to be curious.
A thing for a specific audience, not a thing with a specific purpose, is how i read the subtitle.
the subtitle doesnt say what the reference manual is a reference for. just that software people might like it.
Audience: people who design and build software
Subject: how the things used every day by people who design and build software work
Not the subject: how to design and build software
yeah, I totally agree.
It's like there was a shift in goals after the author made the title. Maybe explaining the basics was so much fun, that the initial idea got lost... I also don't think knowing how a crt monitor works is instrumental for people who want to make software. The domain is cool, but it doesn't match the content. whatissoftware.com might be better.
when it is explained how pixel, gpu or llm work, I would at least expect some intro to Von-Neumann-Architecture.