Thorsten Ball Writing A Compiler In Go

Thorsten has done an amazing job at taking a complicated subject, distilling it down into digestible parts and taking the reader along (a fun) journey to implement a compiler in Go. All of the concepts are masterfully introduced at the right time and in small steps. I have no background or knowledge of creating programming languages and I was able to follow along from the first page to the last page with relative ease. The author's writing style is very fun and engaging which made it very easy to consume the whole book in just a few days. My two favorite parts about the author's coding choices are: 1) test driven design - tests were written to set the expected outcomes before any non-test code was written 2) zero external dependencies/modules - *everything* was built using the Monkey interpreter (from the previous book) and the Go standard library (stdlib). 10/10 I would highly recommend this book.

« Writing a compiler in Go » est le digne successeur de “Writing an interpreter in Go” et le talent de l’auteur pour rendre simple des choses complexes ne se dément pas. Comme pour le premier opus, le cheminement est extrêmement progressif (sans pour autant prendre de raccourcis) et le style très agréable. A la fin du livre vous aurez réellement écris 100% d’un compilateur (byte code et machine virtuelle) sans utiliser aucun outil externe et aucune librairie autre qu’une toute petite portion de la librairie standard Go. Même si vous ne pratiquez pas ou n’aimez pas Go (ce qui serait vraiment dommage), vous pouvez faire abstraction du langage utilisé, ce livre reste un des rares ouvrages accessible sur le sujet et rien ne vous empêche de porter le code dans votre langage préféré (quelqu’un la fait pour Rust sur le premier volume). J’ai vraiment hâte de découvrir ce que sera son prochain livre. Suggestions (improbables) : « Writing a micro-processor in VHDL » ?!? « Writing an operating system in Monkey » ?!?

I have both the waiig and the wacig books. I followed both books and entered the code myself. It took me about 2 months to finish the books and code in sequence. (It's important that you follow them in sequence.) The compiler book went much faster because the basics are the same as the interpreter book. Instead of tree-walk to eval, the compiler emits instructions for the vm to execute. Since early in my career I was an assembly language programmer. The vm's stack architecture is quite natural to me so the vm portion, though new, was easy for me to follow as well. Both books are wonderfully written. Code in both book work as advertised. I enjoyed reading and following the code immensely. Ever since I left school I wanted to someday write a compiler. I did it! :-) . I am thinking about re-implementing the programs in Python. That should be quite fun, I would think.

This book is incredible. I've studied making programming languages over the years as a hobbyist because I enjoy it and this book has been tremendously helpful in getting my own language up and going. It's super easy to read and not weighed down by theory. It's like the practical, up-to-date version of the Dragon book. If I was trapped on an island and forced to build a programming language (hint hint!), this is the only book I would take.

I absolutely love this book and I love you! The question of interpreters and compilers have puzzled me for a while and I always wanted to know the process of creating my own language. This book provides that instruction and pulls it all into one place so that you do not have to run around the internet trying to make sense of the intricacies related to this often complex study. Thank you for your great work!