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Writing Compilers and Interpreters: A Software Engineering Approach 3rd Edition

by Ronald Mak (Author)
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Long-awaited revision to a unique guide that covers both compilers and interpreters Revised, updated, and now focusing on Java instead of C++, this long-awaited, latest edition of this popular book teaches programmers and software engineering students how to write compilers and interpreters using Java. You?ll write compilers and interpreters as case studies, generating general assembly code for a Java Virtual Machine that takes advantage of the Java Collections Framework to shorten and simplify the code. In addition, coverage includes Java Collections Framework, UML modeling, object-oriented programming with design patterns, working with XML intermediate code, and more.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0470177071
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0470177075
  3. Edition
    3rd
  4. Publisher
    Wiley
  5. Publication date
    September 28, 2009
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.3 x 2 x 9.1 inches
  8. Print length
    864 pages
  9. See all details
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
47 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Stergios Papadimitriou
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book for learning how to implement an interpreter/compiler
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2010
Verified Purchase
The book of Ronald Mak is simply excellent.
It develops very clearly the techniques to build a parser,
an interpreter, a source-level debugger and a compiler for the
Java Virtual Machine, all directed for the standard Pascal language.

The design of Ronald Mak is very modular build upon robust
software engineering methodologies and the developed modules can be easily
customized (e.g. by extending the Pascal language) and can be readily
utilized in other similar application domains (e.g. implementing special
purpose languages by replacing only the Pascal scanner and parser).

The parser is a top-down one, easily understandable.
Mak produces an intermediate code representation of the program, that is Pascal
independent, and thus both the presented source-level debugger, interpreter and JVM
compiler are kept independent of the Pascal language,
since they operate on the Abstract
Syntax Tree based intermediate code representation.

The Java code of the book is very elegant and understandable.
The design of the interactive source level debugger and of the compiler targeted at the
Java Virtual Machine are also of outstanding quality.

As the author also declares, the book is more for the one who wants to
implement compilers than for the compiler theorist. For the student or engineer who
wants to realize interpreters/compilers, the book is magnificent.
40 people found this helpful
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sukha
5.0 out of 5 stars Delivers on promise.
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2019
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Great, practical book. So far I've only read five chapters - but I'm enjoying it. It's a big book, but it's an easy enough to read. The software design is explain well and sensible. That may be one of the best byproducts of the book. The whole code itself is presented in each chapter and is easy to follow. The compiler is built-up incrementally from one chapter to next. As stated at the beginning of the book, it's not a compiler theory book. And from looking at the last chapter, I can already see a lot of interesting parts of compiler design (e.g. register allocation, optimization) are not included. That said, this book still appears to cover a lot of ground.
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Scott M.
3.0 out of 5 stars Same Design Patterns as Previous Book
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2012
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I bought this book with high hopes that it would speed me along my current project. I enjoyed Ronald Mak's original book which was targeted to C++ folks. I read it early on in my career before I could appreciate good design with high cohesion. Mr Mak's object orient approach, while it works well for his usages, creates too many dependencies for my taste. He does abstract many things out with interfaces, but that's where he stops. For example, there is one abstract base class with about 20 different overloads for the same function (with implementation) where only the parameter signatures are different. In some cases those functions actually do very different things.

I bought this book with the high hopes that the author would use more design patterns in his implementation, but it looks like it's just a java port of his original C++ design. It's a great book for beginners to learn about compilers, definitely easier to understand than the Dragon Book, but I wouldn't rely on it for good examples of OO design, separation of concerns, or SOLID programming.
16 people found this helpful
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Robert Thunelius
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is one of the most practical examinations of writing a compiler that I have read.
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2013
Verified Purchase
It is filled with actual working code, so that a practical Software engineer can see what is happening as the chapters incrementally add to what has been developed in earlier chapters.
There is not a large emphasis on theory, and while necessary at some point, it allows for a more grounded approach to learning from a working code perspective. Allowing theory to be learned after the fact, once code has been seen in action.

Well written and well structured.
3 people found this helpful
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Stan Tackett
5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a great textbook
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2013
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This book was just what I needed to refresh my fading memory of compiler design skills. And this one is cross-platform, as the code is written in Java.

The book goes step by step in developing a full Pascal interpreter and then compiler. Highly recommended!!
8 people found this helpful
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David Ung
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is amazing. I have read this book up to chapter ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2017
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This book is amazing. I have read this book up to chapter 10 so far and am amazed. The most impressive part about this book is the code. So beautiful.
One person found this helpful
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DR SYLVAIN J.R. GARCEAU-BERGERON
5.0 out of 5 stars The book is excellent at presenting an easy to follow methodology on how ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2015
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The book is excellent at presenting an easy to follow methodology on how to write a compiler. I also acquired his first edition book which details how to write a compiler using C instead of Java.
One person found this helpful
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Elton
3.0 out of 5 stars Could've been better
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2015
Not the best book on the subject. You can, however, learn something if you are willing to go through this book. I say "willing to go through this book" because the writing style is dull; reading the book becomes boring at times. To wrap it up: the book (along with the full source code online) contains valuable information, but the way this information is presented to the reader is not as good as it should.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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enrico
5.0 out of 5 stars ottima referenza
Reviewed in Italy on December 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
ottimo libro per chi vuole capire il funzionamento di un compilatore/interprete e vuole costruirne uno. adatto per utenti avanzati.
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romeo
5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Awesome Writer.
Reviewed in India on August 2, 2018
Verified Purchase
Ronald Mak is DAMN knowledgeable . I am not from Computer science background but of the late has developed great passion. These kind of book tell me how a complex and practical SW is written in JAVA. Hats of to this great Author. I have his Compiler writing using C book too.
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José Rafael Cenit Roleke
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Reviewed in Spain on April 8, 2016
Verified Purchase
This book is essentially a learning by doing. The whole project is in the book so you will mostly see code.
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kwadwo amankwa
5.0 out of 5 stars Does what is says on the tin !
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2015
Verified Purchase
This book is amazing! The compiler in the book uses similar techniques used to build 'Clang' a production compiler . A word of warning though. If you're expecting this book to be a one-stop shop for learning compilers think again there is no book that could satisfy that requirement (not in one volume at least)There is just too much theory to cover (Formal Systems) . I bought this book after taking a course in compilers and reading the 'Dragon book' ie. after building a solid theoretical foundation, to get a practical understanding of compilers and this book delivers.
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Brian Jäger
4.0 out of 5 stars A great book for someone who already knows about compiler and interpreter design/implementation
Reviewed in Germany on April 21, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book is really nice to have as a reference. It shows an object-oriented approach for writing compilers and interpreters. I had learnt some basics about compilers and interpreters and their internal design before I’ve bought this book. I’ve always started in a procedural programming style and later tried to pour the code into classes and/or modules depending on the language I was using.
This was the first time that I’ve really considered a more modern approach and this book has showed me in great detail how that could look like. I had no problem to follow the book with the help of its UML and Syntax Diagrams.

It is also a good (but time consuming) idea to implement the compiler/interpreter while reading the book. In that way you learn a lot about pitfalls, possible spots for bugs, and why which design decision has been made.

I think this book expects some basic knowledge if you want to start right away. There is also an awful lot of code in there. You will hardly find a page without code and listings but that’s the kind of details that let you peek behind the scene.
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