Compiler construction for digital computers

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1. rramadassJun 2026
   I suggest starting with the old but classic Compiler Construction for Digital Computers by David Gries. Pair it with some modern books recommended here and you should be good.

   David Gries - https://www.cs.cornell.edu/gries/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gries

   Dutch computer scientist Dick Grune has written of Compiler Construction for Digital Computers that "entire generations of compiler constructors have grown up with it and they have not regretted it."

   Note that Dick Grune himself is famous for his books on compilers/programming languages - https://dickgrune.com/index.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Grune

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2. Joker_vDSep 2025
   An array index can be signed with no problem. If you're worried about the address calculations, well, the address of an array doesn't have to be the address to its initial element, does it? It can be the address of the element with index 0 (even if an array does not have such an index at all):

       arr: array[-2..10] of integer;
   
       pointer(@arr) == pointer(@arr[0])
   

   Or you can use descriptors (dope vectors), but that involves quite an overhead. The books on compilers from the 70s (e.g. Gries's "Compiler construction for digital computers") have rather extensive discussions on both approaches.
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3. zabzonkSep 2025
   Yes, I'm familiar with Pascal indexes, but I don't find them very natural for the kind of programs I write. I want functions/classes to do any sort of translation.

   > The books on compilers from the 70s (e.g. Gries's "Compiler construction for digital computers")

   Yellow cover, I think? My then GF bought it for Xmas at about 1984 or so. Not the best book on the topic, IMHO.

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4. alaaalawiMay 2023
   this may be interseting (YMMV) read page 50 of "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers" 1971 which lists other reason some which are still valid and good to know
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5. jhbadgerOct 2022
   I like how one of the books from 1971 is titled Compiler Construction for Digital Computers. Very important to make clear this wasn't for analog computers!
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6. JustSomeNobodyMar 2017
   Nope, but have always loved playing around with compilers for languages like PL/0, Pascal (subset) and such. I have many books on compiler design[0] but my itch is usually scratched by implementing a subset of a Wirth language as opposed to creating my own. I don't keep anything I write because it's fun to do it all over again later.

   [0] I think my oldest is "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers" by David Gries. My favorite isn't really a compiler book, it's Wirth's "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs" because he implements PL/0. I used to have some PDFs by Thomas Christopher that used matrices to computer first, follow, etc sets that I thought was interesting, but have since lost those.

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