Principles of Compiler Design

The key to a book being 'really amazing' can often just be that it is pitched to the exact level the reader needs, and is about something he or she is really interested in. I think both of these things conspire to make me a biased reviewer of this text, but I can say that after just the first chapter I was already putting what I learned to work in an ASP program...yes, not a theoretical compiler project, etc., but a good-old website. There is so much that we do in programming that is compiler-like (and so much we do to interact with the compilers driving our languages) that having a better conceptualization and a solid vocabulary to describe what compiling is about can benefit any programmer.The writing style is direct, not boring, and is not entirely absent of a little dry wit. But it is not personal. The cover art should not lead you to think this is a 'fun' approach to the subject. It's business.Can't go wrong if you like this sort of thing. If you're a student just trying to get by somehow, well, at the price I guess you might as well give it a try. Besides, then you can throw in some comment about "the dragon book," and seem really in the know about this 'classic'.

This is a classic of computer science. I'm glad to have it in my library.

This is a graduate textbook from 50 years ago. The authors are so talented that you could hand it to a 6th grader and have them building a compiler in 2 weeks. It's that well written.The authors explain all the Set Theory needed to understand regular expressions, lexing and parsing in a way that's easy to read, but without being condescending or giving useless toy examples.If you like compilers, you should have this book handy.

Book in excellent condition! Prompt Shipping. Thanks!

I have read 2 chapters so far and this book is great - explains the gritty details of implementing languages w/o using grad-school level terminology. Plain english and easy to understand. I'll update again when I am further along.

Great!

Good condition except the spine was faded. Excellent addition to my library.

Despite its age, this book is still quite astonishing. I have a little knowledge of llvm and gcc, and the information in this book is still seems to be as good as the day it was written. Variants of the tools mentioned still exist, and are still used for the same things. Other than mentioning languages such as FORTRAN throughout the chapters you wouldn't even know the age.There are lots of examples and problems to work through, but there aren't so many as to bore you with a single topic (this is not a math textbook). Be prepared to take your time reading this book, however, it isn't like many more modern CS books that tend to repeat themselves many times (leading to this book being compact).

The book is second-hand, and my copy has been written in by the previous owner.This is of no concern to me but might persuade others to buy a new copy of the 2nd edition.

First of all, this book is old. It uses examples from programming languages such as FORTRAN, Algol, PL/I, and very occasionally, the C programming language. However, this doesn't take anything away from this book. It reads like a dream. Aho and Ullman are very clear, concise, and have the correct balance between abstract and practical in their text.I'm coming into this book already having a background in compiler implementation, but wanted to know the theoretical aspects of it: implementing a program that creates lexers or parsers, code generation and code optimization, you got it. Both the front end and the back end of the compiler are covered in great detail. Also, the book is not long!

Bible of compiler design.however edition is old but hardly misses little new concepts.a must have to understand compiling.

Great book for compiler design... Clearly explain the topics