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A comment on If I ever design a first course in compilers, I'll do it backwards. Parent comment

Re:If I ever design a first course in compilers, I'll do it ... by rayiner on Thursday August 07, 2014 @10:14AM (#8147789)
I think the reason books/courses spend so much time on lexing/parsing is that finite automata, etc, are very broadly applicable concepts, more so than the later material.
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Re:If I ever design a first course in compilers, I'll do it ... by plorkyeran on Thursday August 07, 2014 @10:21AM (#8147826)
The parsing/lexing part is the onyl part I've made direct use of in real projects. Everything else provided very important background knowledge that has occasionally proved useful, but little that applies to anything other than writing a compiler.
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