From Curiosity to Code

Posted on Jul 18, 2025
Learning by Building Existing Systems

Introduction

Out of all the different areas in computing, I think what I find most fascinating is the systems programming sector. For a long time I have been wondering how engineers are able to make sense of the complex language of low-level programming, and the more I got exposed to different projects and technologies the more my thirst for learning about the subject grew. And I think this thirst for knowledge got to the point where today I decided to undertake my own systems programming project in C++. I thought it would be worthwhile to build an app that is able to monitor CPU usage, memory stats and other low-level metrics. Most people would say that ChatGPT is the app that impresses them the most these days but to me, I find the Windows Task Manager app to be the real masterpiece, not only because it has been around since forever but also because it is more complex than it appears.

So having done a little bit of research, I decided that I would build a similar tool from scratch to have the experience of walking the same path as these engineers at Microsoft who brilliantly invented this tool. My tool’s name is DiagnoSys and I am looking forward to achieving a few things by the end of this project.

My goals for this project

By the end of the project I’m hoping to:

  • become sharper at debugging system-level C++ code
  • become fluent in using the Microsoft documentation API for low-level interactions
  • learn how to write and run automation scripts using CMake
  • learn how to test performance software rigorously
  • make DiagnoSys the starting point for my next system’s project (i.e extend its features)

You can find today’s progress here: Friday July 18th 2025

Thanks for reading!