Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text?

compilers@is-not-my.name wrote:
> Is it unreasonable to explain what to do in an algorithmic way without needing
> for the reader to understand the theoretical background?


You might consider


    Patricia Anklam, David Cutler, Roger Heinen, Jr., and M. Donald MacLaren,
    "Engineering a Compiler: VAX-11 Code Generation and Optimization"
    Digital Press, 1982, ISBN 0-932376-19-3


It's a high-level description of the backend (code generation) of the
DEC Vax/VMS PL/1 and C compilers. The book gives a clear presentation
of the somewhat ad-hoc, but successful, design and implementation of
these compilers backend, using very little mathematics.


Once you understand the ideas, translating them to your choice of
target & implementation environment is a much smaller problem...


Having said that, I'll echo others in this thread: learning enough math
to read the Dragon book would be *very* valuable. In fact, even if you
don't grok the math, the Dragon book is still a great read!


ciao,


--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]" <jthorn@astro.indiana-zebra.edu>
      Dept of Astronomy & IUCSS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
[That's not a bad book, but it's 100% about the code generator, since they bought
the PL/I front end from someone else. -John]

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