4 ms·

The Dragon Book is terrible as an introduction. There are better books I would probably recommend, but not to a beginner. The best "complete" intro out there to

by sieve 2y ago

The Dragon Book is terrible as an introduction. There are better books I would probably recommend, but not to a beginner. The best "complete" intro out there today is Nystrom's Crafting Interpreters.[1] [1] https://www.craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html https://www.craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html

RossBencina 2y ago
> There are better books I would probably recommend I'm curious what you'd recommend. For what it's worth my goal was to compile to machine code. Anything less would have seemed insufficient. Later I got Appel's "Modern Compiler Implementation in Java" and Allen and Kennedy "Optimizing Compilers for Modern Architectures". Cooper and Torczon "Engineering a Compiler" was recommended here recently. I haven't seen it.
- sieve 2y ago
  I got started from the books that were available here in the early 2000s. The one I like the most is "Programming Language Pragmatics" by Michael Scott, mainly for its simplicity. Then there is "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation" by Steven Muchnick. I have Allen-Kennedy's book too, but I think it went over my head when I went through it. So I kept it aside. "Engineering a Compiler" is quite approachable. But, once you know the basics, you get the best bang-for-the-buck by looking at source code of various compilers and virtual machines.
- sitkack 2y ago
  There is a whole body of non-academic work aimed at practioners for implementing compilers. Nils Holm's work https://t3x.org/ https://t3x.org/ Teaching and Learning Compilers Incrementally - Jeremy Siek - RacketCon 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43VA_QaTRT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43VA_QaTRT8 Nanopass https://nanopass.org/ https://nanopass.org/ original paper that was the basis for nanopass http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/gnzrap/the_nanopass_framework_as_a_nanopass_compiler_els/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/gnzra... The Crafting Interpreters and the Thorsten Ball books https://craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html https://craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html https://interpreterbook.com/ https://interpreterbook.com/ https://compilerbook.com/ https://compilerbook.com/ https://www.phind.com/search/cm7efcpv000002e6hqdbfojex https://www.phind.com/search/cm7efcpv000002e6hqdbfojex
  - ratmice 2y ago
    I don't think that the ghuloum 2006 paper was the initial basis for nanopass, at least the paper A Nanopass Framework for Compiler Education∗ seems to predate it in 2004 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1016848.1016878 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1016848.1016878

by sieve 2y ago

RossBencina 2y ago

> There are better books I would probably recommend I'm curious what you'd recommend. For what it's worth my goal was to compile to machine code. Anything less would have seemed insufficient. Later I got Appel's "Modern Compiler Implementation in Java" and Allen and Kennedy "Optimizing Compilers for Modern Architectures". Cooper and Torczon "Engineering a Compiler" was recommended here recently. I haven't seen it.

sieve 2y ago
I got started from the books that were available here in the early 2000s. The one I like the most is "Programming Language Pragmatics" by Michael Scott, mainly for its simplicity. Then there is "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation" by Steven Muchnick. I have Allen-Kennedy's book too, but I think it went over my head when I went through it. So I kept it aside. "Engineering a Compiler" is quite approachable. But, once you know the basics, you get the best bang-for-the-buck by looking at source code of various compilers and virtual machines.
sitkack 2y ago
There is a whole body of non-academic work aimed at practioners for implementing compilers. Nils Holm's work https://t3x.org/ https://t3x.org/ Teaching and Learning Compilers Incrementally - Jeremy Siek - RacketCon 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43VA_QaTRT8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43VA_QaTRT8 Nanopass https://nanopass.org/ https://nanopass.org/ original paper that was the basis for nanopass http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf http://scheme2006.cs.uchicago.edu/11-ghuloum.pdf https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/gnzrap/the_nanopass_framework_as_a_nanopass_compiler_els/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/gnzra... The Crafting Interpreters and the Thorsten Ball books https://craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html https://craftinginterpreters.com/contents.html https://interpreterbook.com/ https://interpreterbook.com/ https://compilerbook.com/ https://compilerbook.com/ https://www.phind.com/search/cm7efcpv000002e6hqdbfojex https://www.phind.com/search/cm7efcpv000002e6hqdbfojex
- ratmice 2y ago
  I don't think that the ghuloum 2006 paper was the initial basis for nanopass, at least the paper A Nanopass Framework for Compiler Education∗ seems to predate it in 2004 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1016848.1016878 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1016848.1016878