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I recall the classic 1986 edition of the Dragon Book spending waaaay too much time on boring details of lexing and parsing. I think it turned many people off th
by tom_mellior 10y ago
I recall the classic 1986 edition of the Dragon Book spending waaaay too much time on boring details of lexing and parsing. I think it turned many people off the interesting aspects of compilers. It also had an interval-based formulation of data-flow analysis that nobody uses, possibly because it's (a) more complex than worklist iteration, and (b) not applicable to irreducible control flow graphs.
Are newer editions better and more focused on interesting solutions to interesting problems?
- rwallace 10y agoTry the Tiger Book instead (a.k.a. 'Modern compiler implementation in C', or there are Java or ML versions if those are more to your taste). It has a better balance: more to the point treatment of lexing and parsing, leaving more space for a more comprehensive treatment of optimization and code generation.
- pjmlp 10y agoI second it, even if the book has a few issues here and there, it was one of the best books I read on the subject.