Re: Crenshaw's Compiler Tutorial: 68k Asm to X86 Vs Interpreting, Newbie Qs on Parsing and Pascal

Veli-Pekka Tätilä wrote:
>
> Some things in computing seem like black magic untill you understand
> enough of the mysterious bits to realize they aren't. Compiling and
> parsing are two such things. Being very new to parsing, I was glad
> to discover a simple, hand-son tutorial called Let's Build a
> Compiler by Jack W. Crenshaw. ... > My last question is, does the
> Crenshaw tutorial make sense without being able to implement and or
> fully understand the assembler bits? I suppose the principles of
> parsing are sort of target language neutral.


Yes, there are very many books on the subject that don't involve
assembler, so it could be that Crenshaw's is not the ideal text for
you. I like Aho & Ullman[1] but others here will have more up-to-date
suggestions. I would suggest "A Retargetable Compiler: Design and
Implementation" by Fraser & Hanson[2], which describes the complete
implementation of a top-notch ANSI C compiler, but it's entirely
written in C (which you find difficult).


[1] http://net.gurus.com/bk/a/0201100886
[2] http://net.gurus.com/bk/a/0805316701

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