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Crafting Interpreters: A Review

chidiwilliams.com

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Re: Crafting Interpreters: A Review

#41

Post by lalwanivikas »

Derbasti wrote: post #35

Without a doubt one of the best technical books I have ever read. To me, it was a missing piece of the big puzzle of "how do computers work". I read many a book to answer this question, and came away with three books: - CODE by Charles Petzold explains the CPU - Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by Arpaci-Dusseau explain OSes - Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom explains programming languages Masterfully done…

Exactly the comment I was looking for. Thanks for the OS book recommendation.

PS: you might want to reformat your list.

Re: Crafting Interpreters: A Review

#42

Post by nphard85 »

Just completed part 1 (used Python instead of Java to spice it up a bit) and it was a great experience! Looking forward to working through part 2, but it will be a while before I can get around to it. I hope more books follow this engaging writing pattern (when it makes sense). Kudos to Bob Nystrom for this great book.

Re: Crafting Interpreters: A Review

#43

Post by slingnow »

hyperzhi wrote: post #3

I've been wanting to read this book, but I'm not sure how I should go about it. Are you supposed to read and type out the code examples? I'm just wondering if I will learn anything that way?

Talk about analysis paralysis. You won't read a book because you're not sure how the book _should_ be read?

Re: Crafting Interpreters: A Review

#46

Post by munificent »

marai2 wrote: post #27
d23 wrote: post #4

This book is a work of art. It's one of the best technical books I've ever read. Truly a masterpiece along every dimension.

As the footer on the online version of the book says "Handcrafted by Robert Nystorm" - it really is lovingly hand crafted . It shows that the author went over the content many, many times polishing it with every go. The content builds up really well as it goes along. On a minor note, whenever I read a technical book I always come across some mistake in the copy-editing, a missed article, a misplaced article, a typo.…

> Though I do feel the author ran out of steam with respect to the lovely, quirky artwork in the book.

Definitely true. I was hoping to write the book in two years and it took me six. By the end (which was also during the pandemic) I was pretty fried and it was hard to summon much energy for whismy. I tried to pack as many illustrations in as I could, but by later chapters I was really just trying to get it done.

Also, pragmatically, I found the chapters on the bytecode VM really needed a lot more useful illustrations for things the execution flow so that left less space for the fun ones.

> I'm disappointed Bob, I want my money back.

Sorry, all sales are final. I've already spent the money on whiskey and synthesizers. That's what you get for not scrutinizing the later chapters on the free web version first to ensure that they were up to your standards.

Re: Crafting Interpreters: A Review

#47

Post by munificent »

chidiw wrote: post #20
Noe2097 wrote: post #18

Following a slightly different path, "Modern compiler implementation" goes over several topics mentioned in the review (lexing, parsing, type checking, code optimization and generation, runtime environments aspects e.g. garbage collection). There exists various flavors of the book (in ML, Java, and C).

There's also Thorsten Ball's Writing an Interpreter in Go[1] and Writing a Compiler in Go[2]. [1] https://interpreterbook.com/ [2] https://compilerbook.com/

Yes! Thorsten's books are great!

Re: Crafting Interpreters: A Review

#50

Post by vips7L »

Derbasti wrote: post #35

Without a doubt one of the best technical books I have ever read. To me, it was a missing piece of the big puzzle of "how do computers work". I read many a book to answer this question, and came away with three books: - CODE by Charles Petzold explains the CPU - Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by Arpaci-Dusseau explain OSes - Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom explains programming languages Masterfully done…

OSTEP is the best technical book I’ve ever read.
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