RE: Compiler Recommendations

["Anthony Gabrielson" <user=894@nabble.blu.org>]

-----Original Message----- 
From: Casey Callendrello [mailto:[hidden email]] 
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 4:21 AM 
To: Anthony Gabrielson 
Cc: [hidden email] 
Subject: Re: Compiler Recommendations 
Anthony, 
You've certainly picked quite a deep topic to jump in to!  Compiler 
design is one of those areas of computer science that remains extremely 
academic.  To that end, I recommend checking out the MIT Open Courseware 
page for class 6.035, Computer Language Engineering.  See 
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-035F
all-2005/CourseHome/index.htm 

While I can't speak for the MIT class, when my fellows and I actually 
went through the process of creating a scripting language from the 
ground up, it was an eye-opening experience in terms of the decisions 
computer scientists have to make in the real world.  In general, I'm an 
advocate for learning through tinkering / hacking, but there is a lot to 
be gained from a proper introduction to compiler techniques.  Not, of 
course, to presume you haven't had one! 

Book recommendations: 
* 'Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools', better known as "the 
Dragon Book" by Aho, et. al. is *the* definitive text on language 
construction.  I imagine that every single language author has read this. 
* 'The C programming language'; Everybody should have this. 

If your ultimate goal is the creation of a new language, you should 
check out the ANTLR parser generator.  Building parsers is the most 
tedious and difficult part of programming a compiler, so anything that 
can be automated should be! check out www.antlr.org 

Hope this helps! 
--Casey 
  

Hello, 
        I'm actually about to enter my last semester in a CS masters 
program.  I have one class this semester and happens to be Design of 
Programming Languages.  I have had all of the theory classes etc and I'm 
curious to take a peek at an implementation before I start the class. 
That's why I'm looking for a fairly straight forward implementation that 
will cover a lot of what I have learned and shed light on what is to come in 
an implementation form. 

Thanks, 
Anthony 



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