Learning to compile

[Andrew McRobb]

I may not be the best one to talk, but writing a compiler in something like
Java/Haskell sounds like it would be incredibility slow if you wanted to
get some real world usage out of it. If you already know some Java, why not
take a dive into a real lower level language like C/C++ already? -- C/C++
have been used to write a lot of compilers/interpreters. Speaking of, check
out Bisqwit's video on writing a compiler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF9qWbuQLuw&t=652s

If half way in that video already feels like it's a little too much to
handle, perhaps you are not ready. -- No offense. I've tried to taken a
nose dive attempting to write a MMO game from scratch and got burned from
it pretty quickly after I realized how evolve you really must be. Just
don't want you to waste your time, if it could be spent doing something
more practical. Otherwise, if you can sit through the hole video and
understand how to interpreter into xyz language, by all means go ahead and
mess around, and do some Googling around on the Internet. There are 100s
examples out there how to make interpreters/compilers.

I also had this book at one point, if the hole project still interests you:
https://www.amazon.com/Compilers-Principles-Techniques-Tools-2nd/dp/0321486811/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1516817947&sr=8-2&keywords=compiler

Andrew McRobb
Full-time Software Developer
Part-time Freelancer
mcrobb.info

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 6:39 PM, trent shipley <trent.shipley at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Since my other thread degenerated into a "school bad, school good" flame
> war, I thought I would try again.
>
> I have little academic OR practical background with programming.
>
> I want to write a couple of compilers.
>
> The compilers are for functional languages.
>
> I would PREFER to write the compilers with functional languages (1, a
> Haskell to JVM compiler mostly in Haskell with with some Java, 2,
> Funcalc--a pedagogical spreadsheet in Kotlin.)
>
> I'm pretty good at learning computer languages, and so far teaching myself
> Haskell has failed to produce insurmountable obstacles.
>
> But programming compilers is supposed to be HARD, and very much indebted
> to theory (as in, things they DO teach in school).
>
> I have no money for school, (and whether school produces better coders or
> not, I LIKE school, but that's irrelevant due to the money problem.)
>
> Is it possible to teach yourself to write compilers in an imperative
> language? If so how?
> Having learned to write compilers with imperative languages, how do you
> convert to writing compilers in functional languages (for example, given
> Haskell [thought by many to be hard], writing lexer-parser-compilers is
> considered easy)?
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Trent.
>
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