I've purchased or borrowed 5 books on compiler design. There is no doubt that this book should be the choice for any introductory course. The authors explain everything tightly and provide a lot of actual examples in the text. All of it is in Java, of course. Don't worry if you don't use Java. It's very easy to understand if you have any experience with any OO language. I prefer Object Pascal and had no trouble whatsoever with the code.

This book will not provide proofs or a lot in the way of choices for designing a compiler. This is good when you are starting out. The last thing you need if you actually want to learn about compiler design from front to back is a hundred different ways of doing the same thing. The text takes you through a small version of the "Triangle" language ("Mini-Triangle") - and the code for the entire Triangle language is available for download.

This book makes learning about compilers effortless for anyone with an OO background and a little knowledge of the most common algorithms learned in any into course on algorithms. If you can't learn from this text, then don't bother with any other.

The next book I'd recommend after reading this text is the Dragon Book. Then you can try on Advanced Compiler Design for size - which I am doing at present.

A great book to read along (or just before of after) this text is Programming Language Pragmatics. I read it in parallel. If I had to do it again, I'd probably read it first.

I have recently finished writing the Triangle compiler based on this great book for a compiler class I'm taking the code amounted to roughly 5000 lines of code and it's totaly based upon the instructions given in this book. I belive this is the best book written about writing compilers it's very easy to understand and the methods used such as the visitor pattern are extremely advanced and will improve ur level of java programming. there is not much concentration on understanding how compilers work but there are tons of other books for that purpose and frankly who cares we'r more interested on how to write a compiler than how it was written by other people. the triangle language designed is easy but serves the purposes quite well and has everything C or Pascal has I've been working on this for 4 months and now I feel sad becuase I have finished the project and there is nothing more to do I recommend this book for all serious people who love writing java code.

My situation: I am writing this because I feel that I owe a lot to the authors. I am a University student and I developed an interest in compilation and interpretation. I had access to a wide range of texts at my University but I struggled to get a foothold in the field. I was having difficulty turning the theory presented in these academic texts into practice in my own attempts at compilers.

Ideal for me: I had given up on the field for the time being when I came across this book. I could not believe it. It was not what I was looking for because I had no idea it existed, but it quickly became apparent that it was ideal for my situation. My preferred language is Java and so this just helped to make the examples jump out of the page at me that little bit more.

Working through the book: I enjoyed working through the book and found it very readable and self-explanatory. The examples are excellent and reinforce every concept presented by the book. It stood out from everything I had read on the subject to this point (and since).

The case-study: The case study, which runs throughout the book, uses the programming language Triangle. It has obvious links to the previous incarnations of the book when the Pascal programming language was used. Triangle is a simpler version of Pascal but is still a reasonably realistic language to look at. I found it very useful to see how each aspect of the compiler would actually look in code for an example language. The language is compiled to an abstract machine called TAM. The details of this are included in the appendix and can be transferred to other machines with a bit of careful modification.

Structure of the book: The book starts off with the normal background and definitions in the first two chapters. I found the next five chapters to be the most interesting in the book. They are on Compilation, Syntactic Analysis, Contextual Analysis, Run-Time Organization and Code Generation. The last two chapters are on Interpretation and a Conclusion.

Correctness of programming techniques used in the book: This book is very correct in its programming techniques. I had been a bit worried when I read that it was by a Pascal programmer that it might be Pascal-style Java but it used proper Java techniques throughout. I was especially impressed with the appendix containing Class Diagrams for the Triangle Compiler.

Summary: I found that this book told me just what I wanted to know about the field when so many others were telling me everything but this.

I found this book to be very enlightening in regards to Windows 2000 Directory Services planning and implementation. As an experienced Windows NT 4 administrator, this book may also prove useful for any Network Admin looking to upgrade their system(s) to Microsoft's latest NOS. The only qualm I had, was the fact that this book could have been somewhat more detailed regarding some of the explanations for RIS, DNS, and implementation of group policies. All in all a great book to add to your repertoire.

The book is designated to help a reader to prepare for a MCSE test. It is also very useful for an NT administrator moving toward Win2000. The truth is that if there is no Active Directory on a Win 2000 server there is no way to administer Win2000 domain. This very clever book explains the best practices available to administer Win 2000 Server and network. Highly recommended!

Yes, It's a great book -- Not only a dictionary of jargons, but also a collection of guidelines for study and research in various fields within the discipline. Most items provide a brief but critical review on the topics, all by preeminent figures in related areas. It's will be great helpful for both students and professionals.

My boys...were immediately inspired by the fascinating
projects in this book! However, they are not able to make
the projects independently. I would highly recommend this
book for parents of kids who are willing to get their hands
dirty and for parent of kids who like multi-day projects.
We had a blast building a full model Stegasarous and T-rex,
but we spent many hours building them.

You will need to go to other resources for full details
about how/when/where the dinos lived. This is mostly a project
book and less of a reference book. But the projects are so
fun and interesting, it will make you want to learn more.

In less than three hundred pages, the authors are able to introduce Moral Hazard, Adverse Selection and Signalling in an outstanding accessible way, without no lack of formality. Given the importance of contract theory in modern Economics, undoubtedely this is the first book to be read.

Each chapter is full of examples and graphs that help to understand the mathematics underneath.

The reader is supposed to know Kuhn-Tucker theorem, so any advanced undergraduate student in economics should be able to read it.

The base model, presented in chapter 2, is used as a benchmark to compare the results obtained from the Moral Hazard model (brilliantly presented in chapter 3), Adverse Selection (chapter 4) and Signalling (chapter 5).

Each chapter has very well posed exercises, whose answers are in the end of the book. Furthermore, advanced themes are also discussed in the end of each chapter, giving to the reader a complete overview about theory of information.

So, since this theme has been increasingly important in modern economics, and given that this book is very easily readable, I strongly recommend it to any person who wishes to understand theory of contracts and incetives.

A searing analysis of what the factors are that bring about dissent and organizing within the military. An unusual work,
but highly readable. A serious attempt to study the phenomena
of progressive dissent within the militaries of several nations in the mid to late 20th century. This book is difficult to find, but a rare treasure for scholars of the military.

Fey Hassall and her son-in-law, David Forbes Watt have brought to light an extraordinary tale of WWII. The Italian-German Diplomatic linkages, the SS, concentration camps, the mother's frantic efforts to find her two sons after escaping from the SS marches between concentration camps is a riveting--and true--saga of great courage and determination.

Since I enjoyed reading David Clark's "Dialogical Apologetics" and "Apologetics in the New Age," co-authored with Norman Geisler, I had to read "The Pantheism of Alan Watts," especially since it was referenced in the co-authored book above. Although, admittedly, I'm not well read on Alan Watts (which is my weakness in reviewing this book), the fact that he is a popular author provided incentive to my reading, and probably to Clark's writing, of this book. Clark's mastery of the Watts corpus is apparent, and the analysis is intellectually engaging. He is obviously careful in his presentation of Watts' evolving ideas, from his early belief as an Anglican priest that Christianity was compatible with (Zen) Buddhism and "the perennial philosophy" to his later admission of its incompatibility which resulted in his abandonment of Christianity. Clark also shows how Watts can get around some of the intellectual objections of his critics. But he also shows how Watts and other pantheistic mystics face an intellectual dilemma when making claims such as "God is unknowable by intellection". According to Clark, "Not only is Watts unable to explain human existence with its sensations of finite individuality, he has built a system which cannot be meaningfully affirmed." He continues: "It is always logically possible that there is more to 'the universe than normal experience can understand or comprehend,' but if this universe is pantheistic, there remains the thorny problem of how and why human beings came to exist, speak, think and feel as they do. Watts cannot eliminate all experience as false and conventional because his knowledge is based on experience. Neither can he differentiate between valid mystical experience and conventional pseudoexperience (i.e., our experience of finite existence) because that distinction would be a rational one. It seems that a mystical pantheism has difficulty eliminating the overwhelming experience of being a finite ego from the realm of valid experience" (pg. 104).

Clark admits that this argumentation may not convince some mystics and quotes D. T. Suzuki as an example. But he points out that dismissing logical incoherencies out of hand means that any world view becomes impossible to criticize, including the theistic world view of Christianity. Even if admirers of Watts aren't convinced by the analysis or conclusions of this book, I would find it hard to believe that they would walk away from this book without a deeper understanding of both Watts and his critics. I challenge avid readers of Watts to locate and read this book and if, after doing so, they found it lacking in any way, to provide a well thought-out critique ... I look forward to reading your reviews. This book is highly recommended, along with Clark's other two books mentioned above, and requires careful reading and reflection. For those who consider themselves "panentheists" instead of "pantheists," see Norman Geisler's critical analysis of this world view in his book "Christian Apologetics".

I have always been interested in PL and always looking for a book which covers some of the fundamental issues in a concise, theritical, abstract and understandable way. I think this book is a very satisfactory answer to my search.

High Points:

covers the fundamentals of PL that I feel most graduate CS students must be comfortable with. It directly addresses many subtle issues which are always confusing when you start in a very neat way. The level of abstraction used for discussing thigs is just right. One can understand things reading through the book most of the times It talks about the theoritical angles but again not in a manner that its too difficult to read.

I would highly recommend this book for undergraduate PL class and as a reference book for fundamental concepts. If you feel ever confused about difference between types/class, polymorphisms and all, understanding the real difference between paradigms this is a nice book to go through. The choice of topics covered is also pretty good.

I would have liked to see more on OOP in the book. Also subtype polymorphism was not covered to great extent. But that's just me.

I am sure people will find lot to learn from this book.

I originally bought this book for my Grandmother, who grew up on a ranch in West Texas. I loved it so much that I bought one for myself.

Watt Matthews was one of the giants of Texas ranching. This book shows and tells part of his story. Unfortunately he is now dead, after a long life. He was a living contradiction: a man from a small Texas town, who graduated from Princeton, never married, was wealthy, and slept on a cot in his bunkhouse until shortly before his recent death.

McCullough and Wilson captured this story with wonderful pictures and beautiful prose.

Unfortunately, with Mr. Matthews' death, all of the old cowboys are now gone. This book is a treasure.