There is a nice book by Terence Parr on "The Pragmatic Bookshelf" called "Language Implementation Patterns". I found this to be a perfect introduction to compil

There is a nice book by Terence Parr on "The Pragmatic Bookshelf" called "Language Implementation Patterns". I found this to be a perfect introduction to compilers with a very practical point of view. Rather than talking about grammars for ages he dives right into some (java) code and shows you what problems come up when parsing code and how compilers solve them in different cases. I followed along in python and managed to write my own c-like compiler with it. I believe it is a perfect introduction for students that shows them that writing compilers is not dry, theoretical and boring, but interesting and fundamentally effectful. Terrence is by the way the author of Antlr (reference just for his street cred)