Bitwise Operations: The Most Underappreciated Feature in Low-Level Programming

Bitwise operations are low-level operations that directly modify individual bits within a binary number. They are fundamental to computer science and are used in many applications where performance and memory efficiency are critical and need to be handled with the utmost precision.

Where Are Bitwise Operations Used?
- Low-level programming: Bitwise operations are the bread and butter of systems programming, device drivers, and embedded systems. When you’re this close to the hardware, you need to be as efficient as possible.
- Cryptography: Security algorithms frequently use bitwise operations to scramble data beyond recognition.
- Networking: Protocols often require packing and unpacking data into bits and bytes, making bitwise operations essential.
- Gaming: Fast, efficient calculations are a must in game development, and bitwise operations can be a game-changer. Literally.

Bitwise Operation Types
AND: This operator compares each bit of two numbers and returns a new number whose bits are set to 1 only if both corresponding bits of the original numbers were 1.
OR: This one is more lenient. It returns a new number with bits set to 1 if at least one of the corresponding bits in the original numbers was 1.
NOT: The NOT operator flips a bit. It inverts all the bits in a number.
XOR: This is the exclusive OR operator. It returns 1 if the corresponding bits of the original numbers are different.
Shift Left: This operator shifts all the bits in a number to the left by a specified number of positions, filling the rightmost bits with zeros.
Shift Right: This does the opposite of Shift Left, moving bits to the right and filling the leftmost bits with the original number’s sign bit for signed numbers, or with zeros for unsigned numbers.

Are Bit Operations More Efficient Than Math Operations?
Bitwise operations are faster than standard mathematical calculations because they operate directly on the binary representation of data at the hardware level. CPUs have dedicated circuitry for bitwise operations, allowing them to execute these instructions in just a few clock cycles. This is much more efficient than the multi-step processes required for arithmetic operations like multiplication or division.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 What are bitwise operations?
00:14 Where are bitwise operations used?
00:46 Bit operation types
01:40 Implementing single bit manipulation functions
03:25 Implementing multi bit manipulation functions
04:21 Bitwise operations performance
05:18 Testing with an example

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