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Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text?

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compilers@is-not-my.name wrote:

> 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.

My favorite understandable compiler book is the LCC book:

http://www.amazon.com/Retargetable-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701

You might be right that all books are one (or more) of those three,
but then you should choose from among those.

I don't know of many trivial compiler books, but, yes there are a
number that are more theoretical than I like.

C is a nice, simple language in which to describe compiler design, and
also not so bad a language in which to write compilers.  Given that,
it isn't a bad start toward writing one for another language, and/or
written in another language, unless you don't know C.

Both C and Java are fairly simple, and reasonably similar, with much
of the complication moved to the library. That means a complete
compiler can be described relatively simply, covering all the
important ideas. Once you learn those, you will be ready to go on to
other languages (both for compiling and writing the compiler in).

You don't say what language you are interested in. There are some
complications to writing Fortran compilers not covered in most books.
Both Fortran and PL/I don't have reserved words, which requires
special handling by the compiler. Fixed form Fortran ignores blanks,
which requires a special lexical analysis technique, but most of
compiler theory is in parsing, which is reasonably language
independent.

It seems to me natural that a pseudo-code description will be more
theoretical, and harder to understand, than one using a well-known
high-level language.

-- glen

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Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-17 21:28 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Philip Herron <redbrain@gcc.gnu.org> - 2012-04-18 14:25 +0100
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 16:32 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2012-04-20 03:58 +0000
        Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-22 10:10 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-04-20 09:45 +0100
        Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "Jonathan Thornburg" <jthorn@astro.indiana.edu> - 2012-04-21 15:04 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-18 08:39 -0700
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 17:32 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Alain Ketterlin <alain@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr> - 2012-04-18 18:24 +0200
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2012-04-19 13:53 +0200
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-21 03:07 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-04-21 12:01 +0100
        Re: code quality, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2012-04-22 12:41 +0200
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 11:31 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "Jonathan Thornburg" <jthorn@astro.indiana.edu> - 2012-04-20 16:19 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "Derek M. Jones" <derek@knosof.co.uk> - 2012-04-18 18:16 +0100
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-18 22:43 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-19 00:05 -0700
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 11:31 +0000
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 16:32 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-18 19:30 +0000
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-04-19 18:43 +0100
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-18 20:29 +0000
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@aol.com> - 2012-04-19 14:20 +0200
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 19:05 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Uli Kusterer <ulimakesacompiler@googlemail.com> - 2012-04-21 11:30 +0200
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2012-04-18 22:00 -0400
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-19 11:31 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-20 07:02 +0000
        Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-22 11:10 +0000
          Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-04-22 23:56 +0000
        Re: PL/360, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? ArarghMail204@Arargh.com - 2012-04-24 19:13 -0500
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Bakul Shah <usenet@bitblocks.com> - 2012-04-18 21:15 -0700
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-20 16:06 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? torbenm@diku.dk (Torben Ægidius Mogensen) - 2012-04-19 14:58 +0200
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-20 16:06 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "Joe Schmo" <askmeforit@myisp.com> - 2012-04-21 02:53 -0600
    Re: Writing parsers, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Uli Kusterer <ulimakesacompiler@googlemail.com> - 2012-04-22 16:18 +0200
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-23 19:12 +0000
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Uli Kusterer <ulimakesacompiler@googlemail.com> - 2012-04-21 11:22 +0200
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-21 18:58 -0700
      Re: writing interpreters, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Uli Kusterer <ulimakesacompiler@googlemail.com> - 2012-04-22 12:53 +0200
        Re: writing interpreters, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-22 12:29 -0700
      Re: generating bytecode, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Uli Kusterer <ulimakesacompiler@googlemail.com> - 2012-04-22 13:12 +0200
      Re: Recursive descent parsing and optimization, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-04-22 12:51 +0100
        Re: Recursive descent parsing and optimization, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> - 2012-04-22 18:18 +0200
          Re: Recursive descent parsing and optimization, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "Bartc" <bartc@freeuk.com> - 2012-04-23 10:59 +0100
        Re: Recursive descent parsing and optimization, was Good practical language and OS agnostic text? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-04-22 13:45 -0700
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? compilers@is-not-my.name - 2012-04-22 22:11 +0000
      Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-04-23 18:41 +0100
  Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? basile@starynkevitch.net - 2012-05-02 22:16 -0700
    Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@2ndquadrant.com> - 2012-06-06 16:52 +0000

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