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Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by pyvpx on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:05AM (#13335449)
as someone who has never written a compiler but has an intense interest in doing so, this is also very welcomed!
Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by tomcam on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:08AM (#13335456)
Now is is a great time to write your first compiler. The wealth of tools and docs these days is breathtaking. Give it a go!
Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by kenver on Friday January 06, 2017 @06:26AM (#13335510)
I wrote a toy compiler a very long time ago and I'd like to try again. Do you have any links/recommendations for resources that would be a good starting place?
Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by fjrieiekd on Friday January 06, 2017 @10:13AM (#13336838)
LLVM Kaleidoscope, or if you'd like to start with your own toy CPU, then nand2tetris on Coursera.
Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by csmattryder on Friday January 06, 2017 @08:18AM (#13336007)
I bet you have, but if not, do yourself a favour and grab a copy of "Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools" aka "The Dragon Book".

Still got my copy from uni, dog-eared and sticky-noted throughout.

Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by tom_mellior on Friday January 06, 2017 @09:34AM (#13336427)
I recall the classic 1986 edition of the Dragon Book spending waaaay too much time on boring details of lexing and parsing. I think it turned many people off the interesting aspects of compilers. It also had an interval-based formulation of data-flow analysis that nobody uses, possibly because it's (a) more complex than worklist iteration, and (b) not applicable to irreducible control flow graphs.

Are newer editions better and more focused on interesting solutions to interesting problems?

Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by rwallace on Friday January 06, 2017 @11:17AM (#13337471)
Try the Tiger Book instead (a.k.a. 'Modern compiler implementation in C', or there are Java or ML versions if those are more to your taste). It has a better balance: more to the point treatment of lexing and parsing, leaving more space for a more comprehensive treatment of optimization and code generation.
Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by pjmlp on Saturday January 07, 2017 @03:30AM (#13343005)
I second it, even if the book has a few issues here and there, it was one of the best books I read on the subject.
Re:A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code by astrange on Friday January 06, 2017 @04:27PM (#13340359)
I recommend making sure to avoid reading this book, it spends all its time making mountains out of molehills in the easy parts and leaves out the hard parts. How did they write so many pages about text parsing?

The books by Appel and Louden (forgot the names) are good.