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From: compilers@is-not-my.name
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Subject: Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text?
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:32:13 -0000
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derek@nospam.knosof.co.uk wrote

> I always recommend:
> A Retargetable C Compiler: Design and Implementation
> by David R. Hanson and Christopher W. Fraser

Thanks.

> If you are weak on math you might have a problem getting your head
> around recursion.

I'm sure I don't understand recursion like a mathematician understands it. I
think I understand the applied use of it.

> If you cannot understand recursion your compiler writing days are
> finished.

Before they even started, how sad!

> > I think of all the compilers were written in the DOS days and there
> > were normal guys writing them, not Nobel math prizewinners. Shirley
>
> In my experience compiler writers are not normal guys, but then I
> am a vested interest.

You're probably right since the more I look at it the more it seems
the 90/10 rule applies. 90% of compilers were written by the same
guys. Small group after all. I guess you (plural) have a vested
interested in keeping the group small ;-)
[Back when I was a grad student, I taught the compilers course required
for all CS majors.  Some of them even wrote compilers that worked. -John]