The basics of how programs are compiled and executed

This post is focused on the basics of how a program gets compiled and loaded into memory when the program is executed. It’s useful for code analysis (reverse engineering), and is aimed at those who aren’t already familiar with compilers. The basic reasoning is that if you understand (at least from a high level) how compilers work, it will help when analyzing compiled programs.

So, if you’re familiar with code analysis, this post isn’t really aimed at you. If however, you’re new to the field of reverse engineering, (specifically code analysis) this post is aimed at you.