Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!news.glorb.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.iecc.com!nerds-end From: "Jonathan Thornburg" Newsgroups: comp.compilers Subject: Re: Good practical language and OS agnostic text? Date: 20 Apr 2012 16:19:53 GMT Organization: Compilers Central Lines: 29 Sender: news@iecc.com Approved: comp.compilers@iecc.com Message-ID: <12-04-052@comp.compilers> References: <12-04-023@comp.compilers> <12-04-036@comp.compilers> NNTP-Posting-Host: news.iecc.com X-Trace: leila.iecc.com 1334978623 48213 64.57.183.58 (21 Apr 2012 03:23:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@iecc.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:23:43 +0000 (UTC) Keywords: books, comment Posted-Date: 20 Apr 2012 23:23:43 EDT X-submission-address: compilers@iecc.com X-moderator-address: compilers-request@iecc.com X-FAQ-and-archives: http://compilers.iecc.com Xref: csiph.com comp.compilers:595 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]" 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]