Advanced compiler design and implementation
by Steven S. Muchnick · first published 1997
59% recommend32% neutral9% critical
Why HN recommends it
Deep coverage of program analysis and optimization, where intro compiler texts are thin. Suits readers serious about optimizing compilers who want a follow-up to a first compilers book.
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…favorite language. ((Lua and the lcc compiler (it even has a book explaining its design) in particular, are very educational). (6) If you are REALLY serious about optimization, Steve Muchnick's book, Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation. I have all these books and have derived an incredible amount of learning and joy from them. yes it is a bit of work, but it is fascinating journey. Enjoy. EDIT: If you want to go deep into type systems…
on “Create Your Own Programming Language (Book)” ↗…building mine). Interesting that he recommends "Engineering a Compiler"; I don't doubt that it's a good book but I don't know it. The third on my list (though admittedly a bit advanced) was Muchnick's "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation".
on “Stanford Compilers Course” ↗…here over the old one, but I'd also recommend two other texts: 1) Morgan, Building an Optimizing Compiler -- some people love the writing style. Others hate it, but the material is solid. 2) Muchnick, Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation -- Great book. Must read if you're serious about optimizations.
on “Rich Programmer Food” ↗…you won't care about and not enough on the stuff you do care about. (e.g. it focuses a lot on parser generators and says almost nothing about analysis and optimization) EDIT: A good followup text is "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation" by Muchnick
on “Ask YC: Good compiler books?” ↗The good intro to compilers is Engineering a Compiler. It focuse more on optimization then most intro books, and its all SSA. If you want to go all in on SSA optimization, there is a book called Static Single Assignment Book and its written by a hole list of compiler writers. Its not finished but there is still a lot of information. You can find it here: http://ssabook.gforge.inria.fr/latest/boo
on “Compiler Design in C” ↗…garbage collection. There are versions for C and Java, but ML is much easier to read in a book. If you want a (slightly ugly) encyclopedia of compiler optimisations and IR designs, then Steven Muchnick's Advanced compiler design and implementation is great. Also, on the functional front SPJ's book (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-imp...) is really good. While unfinished, Write You a Haskell is also a really interesting…
on “Resources on creating programming languages” ↗…compilers, program analysis, type theory, etc... I find the Dragon book an irreplaceable reference to this day. It has a breadth of content shared by very few other books. For instance, Muchnick's classic "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation" is really good for analysis and optimization but neglects all front end topics. The only area where I believe the Dragon book is inadequate in is type theory (I recommend Types and Programming languages…
on “Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?” ↗Essentials of Programming Languages. Engineering a Compiler. Managing Gigabytes. Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment Unix Network Programming On Lisp Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming Design Concepts in Programming Languages Lambda-Calculus and Combinators (the new Hindley/Seldin book, just got it 2 weeks ago) Optimizing Compilers…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite programming books?” ↗…programmers have to find supplemental material elsewhere. (I love M. Scott's "Programming Language Pragmatics", respect Grune, Bal, Jacobs and Langendoen's "Modern Compiler Design", consult Muchnick's "Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation".) Topic-wise, supplemental material to Wirth's CC-book, I suggest: LR-parsing (yacc) and in-depth study of instruction selection ([i]burg) and register-allocation (graph coloring) for important backend…
on “Engineering a Compiler, 2nd Edition is out” ↗…and Analysis of Algorithms. - Wirth: Algorithms and Data Structures. * In Compilers: - Wirth: Compiler Construction. - Grune, Bal, Jacobs, Cerial: Modern Compiler Design. - Muchnick: Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation. * In Lambda calculus: - Barendregt: Introduction to Lambda Calculus. * In theoretical computer science: - Kozen: Automata and Computability. - Davis: Computability and Unsolvability.…
on “Technical Papers Every Programmer Should Read (At Least Twice)” ↗…contains so useful information (not much, but useful) about implementation the runtime (e.g. Intro to garbage collection) Personally, I only find the backend (Optimization) interesting: Steven Muchnick's Advanced compiler design and implementation, is the only book that I know of that is mainly focused on optimization. It is literally a encyclopedia of optimizations.
on “Ask HN: Resources for learning to write compilers?” ↗It's a bit idiosyncratic but Steven Muchnick's "Advanced Compiler Design and implementation" is something of a bible for optimising compiler design. Of course, other books are available. I haven't look around recently enough to name any off-hand but there are some really good free textbooks/monographs(etc.)…
on “Oops, I Wrote a C++ Compiler” ↗For those that find it a bit light, I enjoyed Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Steven S. Muchnick. Which covers topics that I found much trickier.
on “The dragon compiler book (2nd edition) is a great book” ↗…of the stuff covered by the normal compiler construction course I attended held by Gerhard Goos 20 years ago. It links some newer papers, so I might have a look. I liked the book by Steven Muchnick 'Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation' . I have to admit that after 18 years not having looked at compiler source code, I feel not up to speed particularly with a lot of profiling and path based optimisations. Also I guess some more advanced…
on “CS 6120: Advanced Compilers: The Self-Guided Online Course” ↗I had a guy at Qualcomm Austin tell me to read Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation by Muchnik. I read it and a few months later I was working for Qualcomm San Diego. I've thought about thanking him but I doubt he'd remember me, it was such a small comment.
on “No engineer has ever sued because of constructive post-interview feedback” ↗