Re: Online compiler courses?

"Steve H" <jkj2000@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> If you've been at this long enough to know all about DFAs, CFGs and so
>> on, then you're ready to do what people who wanted to learn something
>> did before they even had the option of going online: Get a book.
>
> Hi Louis,
>
> I've also been going through books at the library, trying to find a
> good compiler text. It's frustrating. The dragon book is considered
> the canonical work, but it's quite meaty and difficult for self
> study. I believe that's the general consensus.


> As to other texts, I'm looking at Andrew Appel's book, and it's ok,
> but I think this kind of course is best suited for classroom
> sessions instead of self study, with lots of assignments to help the
> pedagogy. Just my opinion of course but writing a compiler I think
> takes a lot of hands on work, like engine building-- something
> that's best done by doing instead of reading through a Chilton or
> Haynes manual.


> It also doesn't help that a number of compiler texts are over ten
> years old and focus on C development instead of java. Again, I have
> nothing but respect for the C programming language but I'm more
> experienced with Java and would prefer to use that if at all
> possible.


The most useful compiler book I've encountered is the original 1993
edition of David A Watt's "Programming Language Processors: Compilers
and Interpreters", ISBN 013720129X. It's almost 20 years old and uses
an ancient Pascal compiler as its implementation language, but it does
a great job of explaining the nuts and bolts of a working processor.


If you absolutely, positively MUST program in Java, there's a more
recent edition (which I haven't seen), ISBN 0130257869.


Both books are available from Amazon.

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