Re: Book recommendation required

Maarten D, de Jong wrote:


> I would like a book which covers in good detail the inner workings of
> a compiler, without resorting to terse mathematical formalisms. Some
> math is okay, though, it shouldn't be simplicity all the way either.


If you look through the postings of the last 6 months in this
newsgroup, you should find many books recommendations of this kind.


> The book should invite the reader to try things out for himself, so
> something which is just source code is not appreciated. I have some
> experience with lexical scanners and parsers, having written a few
> myself (and used lex and yacc). I am fluent in C, but I do not mind
> the author using different languages. I'm more interested in the
> ideas behing the compiler rather than the language the ideas are
> expressed in.


Maybe I am a bit too suspicious, but I am afraid that you still mean
"I want a book about a compiler for a C-like language, written in
C". If you were really interested in the ideas behind the compilers,
you should respect the book author's choice of languages.


> [I would be happy to update the entries in the FAQ if anyone has
> more to add. I like Muchnick's book for the coverage of optimization
> and back end code, Wilhelm and Maurer for their info on functional and
> OO languages. For experimenters, Fraser and Hanson's book on lcc is
> good, since you can then take lcc and hack on it as desired. -John]


I can also recommend the Fraser/Hanson on lcc and also Wilhem/Maurer.
But I still think that Wirth's books will teach you the most with
least effort.

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