4 ms·

Book: Compiler Construction, by Niklaus Wirth [pdf]

53 points by Herald_MJ 16y ago

deweller 16y ago
So many fun things to read. So little time!
- MarkBook 16y ago
  Life was so much simpler back in the olden times when people worked 6 days a week, there wasn't the same demands on time.
petercooper 16y ago
Jack Crenshaw's "Let's Build A Compiler" is another classic: http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/ http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/ .. Back in the mid 90s, it's what got me into a continuing interest in compiler and interpreter development. It has a different audience to Wirth's, though. It's very entry level, almost "Dummies" level.
- aarongough 16y ago
  Great link Peter! Just the sort of info I am looking for at the moment as well...
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  That can be good, though - so many compiler texts go into heavy detail about LALR parsing algorithms, etc., and it's hard to get a sense of how it all ties together. Abdulaziz Ghuloum's "An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction" (http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf) is great, too!
- brianobush 16y ago
  I went through this series several years back and it was very good. I just wish Jack had finished it :( I always enjoyed his writing style (embedded systems programming magazine - programmer's toolbox;, e.g.,http://www.eetimes.com/discussion/programmer-s-toolbox/4026927/Classic-Crenshaw-Rooting-for-Integer-Square-Roots- http://www.eetimes.com/discussion/programmer-s-toolbox/40269... )
- MarkBook 16y ago
  It seems to require turbo pascal to work. Is it possible to find this?
  - MarkBook 16y ago
    Found this https://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/turbopascal https://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/turbopascal
  - petercooper 16y ago
    It leans on Pascal, but when I first read it, I was waist deep in Turbo C. Luckily Pascal is almost pseudocode.. :-) The Pascal is simple enough that, I suspect, FreePascal would be OK with it - http://www.freepascal.org/ http://www.freepascal.org/ - though getting Turbo Pascal 7 for DOS would be a real blast from the past.
- pietrofmaggi 16y ago
  Porting of Crenshaw classic to Forth: http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html "Jack W. Crenshaw wrote the Let's Build a Compiler article series from 1988 - 1995. This document is a formatted version of that excellent non-technical introduction to compiler construction. These web pages were created in 2005, and port Mr. Crenshaw's original Pascal code for the 68000 under SK*OS to the Forth language on a 80x86 CPU, under Windows XP." And porting to Haskell: http://alephnullplex.appspot.com/blog/view/2010/01/12/lbach-1-introduction http://alephnullplex.appspot.com/blog/view/2010/01/12/lbach-...
francoisdevlin 16y ago
Wow... this book is exactly why ALGOL languages suck. They create too much of a barrier between the mind and the computer. With a LISP much of this is not even required, because you create the syntax tree directly. Infix notation for the fail.
- mahmud 16y ago
  What? Oberon is the simplest language to implement, I know, I did .. in Lisp. Here is a text that shows you how, and it's free: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/pascalimplementation.html http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/pascalimplementa... There is another book, whose very generic name escapes me. It's a compiler book using Pascal; it went out of print in the late 80s. That one had invaluable tricks about code generation and optimizing for obsolete processors. There are Z-80 chips still in the market, and that book was the only one that I know of that had algorithms on code generation for accumulator machines. Somebody please prove me wrong! I got my copy of it for fifteen U.S. cents from a local university. The inside of the back cover has those old pockets for keeping library book cards; it was checked out from the library roughly 4 times and it has been on the shelf at least since 1976, the earliest checkout stamp on the card! Here is the kicker; I enrolled in that university for one cheap class, and spent the whole semester extending and renewing the book every time it was due. You see, In 26 years, I was the only person to have borrowed it, and I did so 3 times. Imagine my surprise one day when I went in to browse the shelves, and I saw the book at the library entrance a mid a pile of National Geographics and Popular Mechanics rags. What a treasure! I didn't have $0.15, so I gave them a quarter and donated the change to hire education. I wonder what IT certification book they replaced it with.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    Awesome story. Please tell us that you actually kept the book!? :-)
    - mahmud 16y ago
      Well, if you have a habit of calling family from overseas asking them to move your stuff from your apartment because you're "not coming back", well, crap happens. Last year when I was "permanently moving to Australia", my family staged and intervention and forced me to for-once move my things to my parents' house first. My immigration lasted roughly 364 days, the maximum duration of a tourist stay :-P
fmora 16y ago
Thanks for providing this link. I was not looking for this information but now that I have it I know I will use it. I have always wondered how compilers work and know that I will get a great amount of value out of this book and several others listed here. This is why it pays to hang around HN. Every once in a while gems like these show up.

53 points by Herald_MJ 16y ago

deweller 16y ago

So many fun things to read. So little time!

MarkBook 16y ago
Life was so much simpler back in the olden times when people worked 6 days a week, there wasn't the same demands on time.

petercooper 16y ago

Jack Crenshaw's "Let's Build A Compiler" is another classic: http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/ http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/ .. Back in the mid 90s, it's what got me into a continuing interest in compiler and interpreter development. It has a different audience to Wirth's, though. It's very entry level, almost "Dummies" level.

aarongough 16y ago
Great link Peter! Just the sort of info I am looking for at the moment as well...
silentbicycle 16y ago
That can be good, though - so many compiler texts go into heavy detail about LALR parsing algorithms, etc., and it's hard to get a sense of how it all ties together. Abdulaziz Ghuloum's "An Incremental Approach to Compiler Construction" (http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf) is great, too!
brianobush 16y ago
I went through this series several years back and it was very good. I just wish Jack had finished it :( I always enjoyed his writing style (embedded systems programming magazine - programmer's toolbox;, e.g.,http://www.eetimes.com/discussion/programmer-s-toolbox/4026927/Classic-Crenshaw-Rooting-for-Integer-Square-Roots- http://www.eetimes.com/discussion/programmer-s-toolbox/40269... )
MarkBook 16y ago
It seems to require turbo pascal to work. Is it possible to find this?
- MarkBook 16y ago
  Found this https://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/turbopascal https://downloads.embarcadero.com/free/turbopascal
- petercooper 16y ago
  It leans on Pascal, but when I first read it, I was waist deep in Turbo C. Luckily Pascal is almost pseudocode.. :-) The Pascal is simple enough that, I suspect, FreePascal would be OK with it - http://www.freepascal.org/ http://www.freepascal.org/ - though getting Turbo Pascal 7 for DOS would be a real blast from the past.
pietrofmaggi 16y ago
Porting of Crenshaw classic to Forth: http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html "Jack W. Crenshaw wrote the Let's Build a Compiler article series from 1988 - 1995. This document is a formatted version of that excellent non-technical introduction to compiler construction. These web pages were created in 2005, and port Mr. Crenshaw's original Pascal code for the 68000 under SK*OS to the Forth language on a 80x86 CPU, under Windows XP." And porting to Haskell: http://alephnullplex.appspot.com/blog/view/2010/01/12/lbach-1-introduction http://alephnullplex.appspot.com/blog/view/2010/01/12/lbach-...

francoisdevlin 16y ago

Wow... this book is exactly why ALGOL languages suck. They create too much of a barrier between the mind and the computer. With a LISP much of this is not even required, because you create the syntax tree directly. Infix notation for the fail.

mahmud 16y ago
What? Oberon is the simplest language to implement, I know, I did .. in Lisp. Here is a text that shows you how, and it's free: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/pascalimplementation.html http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/pascal/book/pascalimplementa... There is another book, whose very generic name escapes me. It's a compiler book using Pascal; it went out of print in the late 80s. That one had invaluable tricks about code generation and optimizing for obsolete processors. There are Z-80 chips still in the market, and that book was the only one that I know of that had algorithms on code generation for accumulator machines. Somebody please prove me wrong! I got my copy of it for fifteen U.S. cents from a local university. The inside of the back cover has those old pockets for keeping library book cards; it was checked out from the library roughly 4 times and it has been on the shelf at least since 1976, the earliest checkout stamp on the card! Here is the kicker; I enrolled in that university for one cheap class, and spent the whole semester extending and renewing the book every time it was due. You see, In 26 years, I was the only person to have borrowed it, and I did so 3 times. Imagine my surprise one day when I went in to browse the shelves, and I saw the book at the library entrance a mid a pile of National Geographics and Popular Mechanics rags. What a treasure! I didn't have $0.15, so I gave them a quarter and donated the change to hire education. I wonder what IT certification book they replaced it with.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Awesome story. Please tell us that you actually kept the book!? :-)
  - mahmud 16y ago
    Well, if you have a habit of calling family from overseas asking them to move your stuff from your apartment because you're "not coming back", well, crap happens. Last year when I was "permanently moving to Australia", my family staged and intervention and forced me to for-once move my things to my parents' house first. My immigration lasted roughly 364 days, the maximum duration of a tourist stay :-P

fmora 16y ago

Thanks for providing this link. I was not looking for this information but now that I have it I know I will use it. I have always wondered how compilers work and know that I will get a great amount of value out of this book and several others listed here. This is why it pays to hang around HN. Every once in a while gems like these show up.