Crafting a Compiler with C

I have oredered this book overseas but the shipment was much faster than I expected. This is great book for whom looking for a good reference about compilers.

This book is quite dense and requires some serious work to be understood properly. It is quite complete even if it is a bit old compared with the latest twists in compiler theory. It is a mix between theory and pratical implementation. This is its main strength and its main weakness: it is not a comprehensive theorical work on compilers neither a complete "pratical" tutorial. Anyway it is a good introduction for the (college-level) student who is willing to do some serious work.

I teach compiler construction and I personally hate the "Dragon book" because it is beyond the level of many students. Fischer and LeBlanc present most of the same material and they make it readable. Theirs was the first book to devote an entire chapter to symbol tables, the central data structure that all components of a compiler use. There should be a law mandate that compiler courses should use either this book or Thomas Parsons'.

This book has a nice balance of theory and practical algorithms. There is enough detail to allow a (patient) reader to implement his own compiler tools, though like most other books on the subject, this book leaves you with the feeling that the area might have died about twenty years ago (no insult intended!); an update needed, to include OO languages, some treatment of the complexities associated with parsing modern languages, C++ etc. All things considered, still a great book, well worth the money.