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Very good question. I am interested in reading the suggestions as well. Also, a specific book question: is Engineering a Compiler by Cooper & Torczon any good?

• cvoss 10y ago
  The compiler course I took was taught by Keith and Linda. Keith is certainly one of the best educators in the department, and, in my opinion, their book is also of high pedagogical value. For me, its shining moments are the explanations of abstruse algorithms. The text takes the time to work through interesting example runs of the algorithms that illustrate all the facets of the computation. This was critical to my understanding of how the algorithms work, why they need to work that way, and how competing algorithms differ. It's also not the kind of book that needs to be read cover to cover. We went through the chapters out of order. If you can find matching lecture slides, that can be a great guide or survey of the material.
• fusiongyro 10y ago
  This was the official text when I took the class in 2004 with one of their disciples (Dr. Liebrock) at New Mexico Tech. But the exercises were actually taken from the book Modern Compiler Design by Andrew Appel. Officially, the C version of the book. I got almost nothing out of the book Engineering a Compiler. Aside from that the class was amazing. Maybe the next edition has become excellent? I knew people who took the class using the Dragon book and found that book unhelpful too. I'm currently reading Wirth's book and really enjoying it though.