Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text?

compilers@is-not-my.name writes:


> Guys, I'm having a bear of a time finding a good practical language
> and OS agnostic text on writing a compiler. I'm weak in math and not
> interested in the theoretical details. I want to understand the hows
> and whys of compiler writing. Everything I've found is either
> gobbledygook equations or "let's use C/C++/Java on UNIX" or things
> that are so trivial and focused they don't explain general cases and
> can't be extended to anything useful.


You could have a look at my book "Introduction to Compiler Design"
(http://www.springer.com/computer/swe/book/978-0-85729-828-7), or the
free-to-download earlier version called "Basics of Compiler Design"
(http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/torbenm/Basics/index.html).


The books are language agnostic, describing techniques independently of
any specific implementation langauge, and mostly independently of the
source and target languages for the compilers. There is some math, but
not as much as in some other compiler textbooks I have seen.


I wrote the book mainly as a reaction to the books available at the
time, which were either (IMO) too advanced for students just beginning
the second year of CS or basically walk-throughs of specific compilers
for and in specific languages and, hence, not generally useful.


Torben

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