Re: Mathematics skills for writing a compiler?

Quinn Tyler Jackson wrote:
>>What mathematical skills do I need in order to build an "average"
>>compiler? such as numerical methods, CFG, DFS.... etc
>
>
> <IMO>
> Set and graph theory definitely don't hurt. A smattering of background
> in combinatorics comes in handy when the going gets tough.
>
> Hands on experience with a few "toy languages" and lex and yacc-like
> tools and a copy of Levine et al.'s _Lex & Yacc_ and Friedl's
> _Mastering Regular Expressions_ will carry you a long way, too.


Not necessarily to disagree, but I'd add:


> Then, an audit of Appel's _Modern Compiler Implementation in C_,


Also _Engineering a Compiler_ by Cooper and Torczon. I prefer it to Appel.


> followed by Muchnick's _Advanced Compiler Design Implementation_,


Also _Building an Optimizing Compiler_ by Morgan and _Optimizing Compilers for
Modern Architectures_ by Allen and Kennedy. These texts seem a little more
cohesive to me than Muchnick's.


And if your tastes run toward parallelism:


_High-Performance Compilers for Parallel Computing_ by Wolfe. You'll probably
want to refresh your linear algebra before reading this one.


      Randy
--
Randy Crawford http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~rand rand AT rice DOT edu
[I'd really appreciate it if people were to send in three sentence capsule
reviews of these books in a format similar to the ones already in the FAQ.
-John]

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