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From: Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
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Subject: Re: Making a C compiler in Rust
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2026 16:48:02 -0700
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Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> writes:
> I have indeed read Appel's book in ML, and am currently on a co-course
> writing the Tiger compiler in C.  He also has an edition in Java, which
> I have not read.

I'd go for the ML version of that book.  He made the apt comment that C
is a terrible language for writing compilers in.  Lisp is much better,
but ML, Haskell, and so on are almost perfectly suited for the purpose.

Regarding Lisp, the most interesting dialect these days might be
Clojure, if you can stand the stench of the JVM that accompanies it.
Its ideas are more modern than those of CL.  I haven't tried it myself
so far.  Again the JVM is to blame.