I think this is very well structured. I really like the "Test yourself" section. As a person who finds small post-reading assignments enjoyable and motivating,

I think this is very well structured. I really like the "Test yourself" section. As a person who finds small post-reading assignments enjoyable and motivating, my only suggestion would be to add a small assignment that employs the learnings. Actually coding what one just learned is arguably a good way to reinforce the learnings and raising further questions/doubts. E.g. for your Application Configuration chapter, an example assignment could be: Create a command line application that accepts users inputs as below: a. Mandatory "-firstName" flag to accept first name b. Mandatory "-lastName" flag to accept last name c. Optional "-middleName" flag to accept middle name d. Mandatory "-age" flag to accept age - only integers between 0 and 200 should be accepted e. Optional "-party" flag to accept political party following - only valid values are "D", "R" and "I" d. Optional "-userId" flag to specify user id - if HOME environment variable is set, extract user id from home directory path