Re: Compiler Design in C How about it?

napi@rangkom.MY (Mohd Hanafiah b. Abdullah)
Tue, 07 Aug 90 15:32:53 GMT

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Newsgroups: comp.compilers
From: napi@rangkom.MY (Mohd Hanafiah b. Abdullah)
Keywords: books, review, Compiler Design in C
Organization: MIMOS, Malaysia
References: <1990May31.160821.3007@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 90 15:32:53 GMT

Holub's book is excellent to be used for hands on compiler project. He
describes the implementation issues clearly so that one could start writing
the compiler virtually immediately. Algorithms written in C are also given,
and that is convenient. The book emphasizes using yacc/lex to write ANSI-C
compiler in C. It also explains the complete C "type" system, and structures
in detail. Thus, it could be said that Holub's book is better in getting
beginners who do not have much Math and/or Formal Languages to be more
confident to embark on a complex and time consuming software engineering
project such as writing a compiler for C. One drawback of the book is it
does not have a comprehensive chapter on optimizations.


On the other hand, Aho's book [Aho, Hopcroft, and Ullman, I expect -John]
tries to develop sound fundamental as well as advanced understanding of the
subject matter so that one understands the overall structure and the
underlying principles and theorems. By understanding the "bigger catches" of
compiler design ie., principles and motivation of language and compiler
design, one will have a more meaningful experience and lasting understanding
of compiler writing. The book also explains optimizations in detail,
necessary for production quality compilers.


To summarize, it is good to study both books because they complement each
other to a large extent.


BTW, I haven't found any books on compiler design that explains how to write
a smart linkage editor and a loader in detail. The books never go beyond
mentioning them.


Hanafiah
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