Constructing Language Processors for Little Languages

Rating:
Summary: Good (perhaps the best) but not great
Review: Learning how to build good interpreters and compilers is not easy. For a self-taught programmer such as myself it is a hard road with few lights for the path.

Certainly "Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools" (sometimes called the "dragon book") is far too complex for the beginner. You need something else first.

Kaplan has made a good effort, certainly for the beginner at this art I have found nothing better. While Mak's "Writing Compilers and Interpreter's" is in some ways a better book I don't like that he uses a top down parser, rather than a shift-reduce parser and doesn't explain why. Mak also relies too much on C++ and tackles a problem too large (A Pascal compiler)

Kaplan doesn't fall into any of those traps. He explains well all his decisions and uses methods that translate well into almost any language. He also devotes some space to yacc and lex - essential for those of us who want something a little easier than building the entire thing from the ground up. This book does, however, travel a little fast for some. The main failing is that Kaplan chooses a problem (manipulating images) where too much time is spent on things specific to the language and the end tool is not that useful to a lot of people. He also gets too complex too quickly.

This book will reward you with some effort on your part. I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to learn how best to define and build a small language who is prepared to do some work understanding the concepts.

Rating:
Summary: Good (perhaps the best) but not great
Review: Learning how to build good interpreters and compilers is not easy. For a self-taught programmer such as myself it is a hard road with few lights for the path.

Certainly "Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools" (sometimes called the "dragon book") is far too complex for the beginner. You need something else first.

Kaplan has made a good effort, certainly for the beginner at this art I have found nothing better. While Mak's "Writing Compilers and Interpreter's" is in some ways a better book I don't like that he uses a top down parser, rather than a shift-reduce parser and doesn't explain why. Mak also relies too much on C++ and tackles a problem too large (A Pascal compiler)

Kaplan doesn't fall into any of those traps. He explains well all his decisions and uses methods that translate well into almost any language. He also devotes some space to yacc and lex - essential for those of us who want something a little easier than building the entire thing from the ground up. This book does, however, travel a little fast for some. The main failing is that Kaplan chooses a problem (manipulating images) where too much time is spent on things specific to the language and the end tool is not that useful to a lot of people. He also gets too complex too quickly.

This book will reward you with some effort on your part. I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to learn how best to define and build a small language who is prepared to do some work understanding the concepts.

Rating:
Summary: A good first step
Review: This is a good, basic, "gateway" book on compiler and interpreter design and implementation. It can easily provide the reader with the basic concepts of this tricky topic in a way that will allow the reader to move on to more complicated materials.

Having taken a compiler construction class in college using "Compilers : Principles, Techniques, and Tools", I can say that this book is much easier to understand and I wish we had spent the first 2-3 weeks of the course covering the material therein.

If you are new to compiler construction or are interested in producing a simple interpreter, this book is for you. If you already consider yourself well read in compiler technology, this book may be of questionable value.