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The good thing about this book is it is comprehensive and covers a lot of ground from different vantage points. It was shoddy Good content, horrendous writing. The book is awfully written and I cannot understand how can a book in its 2nd (or 3rd?) edition continue to be so bad. The type checking and runtime environment chapters had examples from C and ML to cover different scenarios. For example, the parsing chapters also cover the design of lex and yacc apart from basic topics.
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† Often missing, however, is a defence of non-obvious design decisions as being genuinely good ideas rather than just accidents of history.more If you somehow make it through the first eight chapters, the last four are more interesting (if more uneven), but not sufficiently so to salvage the whole book.
#Compiler design dragon book code#
The fact that this edition uses Java for much of its code doesn't help, but it actually doesn't hurt nearly as much as you might expect too bad that's only because it's very light on working code samples. It has all the information you need to write a functioning compiler for almost any kind of language you'd want to write a compiler for,† it just lays that information out in the dullest, most laborious way possible. The Dragon Book is one of those ones that shows up on everyone's Top \d+ CS/Dev Books list, but it's one of the ones that are there because you're supposed to be impressed with the implication that the list-maker got all the way through it, not because it's genuinely great. It has all the information you need to write a functioning compiler for almost any kind of language you'd want to write a compiler for,† it just lays that information out in the dullest, most laborious way possi Damned boring. When I taught compilers, we used Appel's Modern Compiler Implementation in Java, which I didn't like nearly as well.moreĭamned boring. We used it when I took compilers, and I've used it as a reference for myself when working on or teaching about compilers and interpreters. The Dragon Book is another fine example, despite this odd reputation it has for being too dryly theoretical. Baby Rudin, CLR, Patterson-Hennessy, Golub and Van Loan, and Kernighan and Ritchie are all fine examples. When I taught compilers, we used Appel's Modern Compiler Implementati There are certain books that everyone (in a relevant technical field) knows. There are certain books that everyone (in a relevant technical field) knows.