When this book appeared in 1995, I had a look at it, but I did not buy it. Why not ?

Wirth describes the basics of modern circuit design without going too much into the electrical details. After a short look at transistors (bipolar and FET) he goes to gates (NAND/NOR/NOT) and shows how to create building blocks like multiplexers, ROM and RAM with them. This presentation culminates in the description of a simple microprocessor core. But it looked a bit too elementary at first sight.

Nevertheless, 3 years later I bought the book, started reading it and still enjoy reading it. Why this change of view ? What I overlooked at first sight was the HDL that Wirth introduces after the presentation of the building blocks in chapter 7. This language is called Lola (Logic Language) and is much simpler than VHDL, Verilog and even simpler than Abel. Lola looks a bit like the other languages Wirth created (Pascal, Modula, Oberon). In the second half of the book, he uses this language to specify his processor design and some peripherals (like a UART). These readable and concise designs together with the unique approach to circuit design are the main reasons why I can recommend this book.

Warning: If you want to learn a HDL that is widely accepted in the industry, learn VHDL, Verilog or Abel. Lola is the outgrowth of an academic project and will not enable you to earn much money in the industry. But I like it and the book.

Historical background and motivation;Basic concepts and structure of the system;The tasking system;The display system;The text system; The module loader;The file system;Storage layout and management;Device drivers;The network;Adedicated server for file distribution;Electronic mail and printing;The compiler;Agraphics editor;Building and maintenance tools.

Could you please re-print this excellent book?
Thank you very much

This is both a classic and an artwork: it must be reprinted and available new!

With only five chapters and 365 pp, this text presents fundamental data structures, sorting, the best treatise I've found on recursion, dynamic information structures, and language structures & compilers. The date of the text precludes object-oriented programming, yet the tools presented here are welcome adjuncts for Delphi developers.

The book that *defines* Pascal, the seed of the underlying Delphi language. Use it to get a concise definition for the procedural parts of Delphi, while learning linked lists, binary trees, pointers, and more. You'll have to work with this text, (i.e., think!), but it is still the most straight-forward presentation of the Pascal language.

This is an old book. I have it for 15 years.

This book is second edition of the book Algorithms + Data Structures = Programming, without Compiler construction, so the formula for it can be

(Algorithm + Data Structures = Programming) - Compiler Construction = Algorithms & Data Structures.

I bought it because of its famous author, N. Wirth, the creator of Pascal, Modula and Oberon progarmming languages.

But the book was a dissapointment for me. The matter in the book is presented in very strange order. There are no field in the book that is explained complete. For example, there are many sorting algorithms in the book, internal as well as external, but some basic sorting algorithms and techniques are not explained. Quicksort algorithm is explained without explaining underlying devide-and-conquer method, etc.

If you considering to by some book from the field of compute algorithms and data structures, there are many better books to buy than this one.

The book goes over practically important algorithms and data structures. It may not include the latest and greatest advances, but it is still very relevant in today's practical applications.

To me, the highest value of the book is not the particular methods explained, but the good style and the way of thinking about programs that the book teaches. There are very few books that can actually teach good style, and this is probably one of the best.

This book is a must read for anyone wishing to become a great programmer, not merely an average one. Another good book is "Design Patterns" by the gang of four, it is the next level.

This isn't a voluminous compilation of algorithms or data structures, but for me it's the first place to look. If I can't find what I need here, I'll check more complete sources, typically either Introduction to Algorithms or Knuth. But if what I need is here, it's typically covered more succinctly and accessibly. It's been on my bookshelf for almost fifteen years, and I haven't seen a worthy, or necessary, replacement.

Dry, uninteresting introduction to compiler design. Written like a reference rather than a text, the book is about as exciting as watching grass grow. Do not try reading this without at least 8 hours of prior sleep. The author should collaberate with an American writer and make it easier to read. The author makes it a point to showcase all of his publications and work. He also assumes the reader has some inate knowledge of Oberon, Modula and Pascal - all very esoteric languages and of questionable relevance.

For each of his major languages (Pascal, Modula, Oberon), Wirth wrote a new edition of his Compiler Construction book. In this book, he introduces to Compiler Construction in general and explains a particular implementation of a compiler for a small language (Oberon0).

The current edition has been extended in some ways (the target RISC architecture is explained much better now). I have read all three books on Compiler Construction by Wirth (even typed in the source of the first book on PL0) and many others by him. I still like his books although his style is a bit formal. Fortunately, the implementation issues keep him down to earth. This book is still the most demanding he wrote. Except for computer science students, which may be happy to get a worked out example in less than 200 pages.

I enjoyed reading this book. I have read several books on the topic and this is one of my favourite introduction.

Obviously it is not as comprehensive as "Compilers Principles, Techniques and Tools" but in 180 pages, you'll learn the basics of compiler constructions.

The book uses Oberon as the sample language. I had no problem with the choice because Oberon is close to other popular languages, starting with Pascal. And yet I confess I never wrote a single line of Oberon code...

This book is a disappointment, but it was very close to good. The articles are mostly anecdotes and project descriptions by Wirth's students. I, too, was expecting more direct descriptions of Wirth's teachings. The glimpses shown here were almost enough, but in the end, unsatisfying.

I'm giving it three stars. If you will do anything to learn more about Wirth, you should certainly read this. For general programming insights of similar ilk other books, such as The Practice of Programming or Meyer's Object-oriented Software Construction, are better places to look.

Echoing the previous reviewer's sentiments, I expected to learn more about the person. Instead, you get some short articles (of uneven quality) by his students. Remarkably, the one most aligned with my current job--the Clint network--was the one I found most tedious.

As a minor plus, the book has a really *nice* cover.

I donated my copy to the local library.

This is the first nerd-book that I've read in a _long_ time that I could call inspiring. It got me back to my roots of computer science and applying Occam's razor to everything I see, think, or do. I only gave this a 4 star because one of the chapters is not congruent with the goals of the book. Chalk that up to the ego of that author and ignore it. The rest is great.

If you are an older generation software engineer and feel like you are drowning in the needless complexity of modern day languages like C++, perl, or java, then I think you owe it to yourself to give this book a try.

If you are a newer generation software engineer and haven't seen what some of your predecessors were doing before and around the time of your birth, then you REALLY owe it to yourself to give this book a try.

I was born the same month as Smalltalk. It's one of my favorite languages. When were YOU born?

This definitely is not the book I would use if you are forced to learn modula-3. I say forced to learn because it is hardly used, if ever in the industry. I had to learn it due to a programming class. This book has horrible examples, and god-awful explanations. If you have a PhD in Computer Science then this book is for you. For the 99.999% of the worlds population find another book that's not by these authors.

If possible, try to avoid the Modula III language all together. Although it encompasses mostly all of the concepts that C++ has, C++ is an outgrowth from the mistakes of Modula III.

I do NOT recommend using this book. It is grossly unorganized and their explanations are convoluted, not detailed, assumes that the user is using SRC Modula III and that the reader has a programming background (although the authors claim otherwise).

I also do not recommend this book to anyone, due to the fact Modula-3 is not even worth learning. Even if it was, this would not be the book at all to read.