Crafting Interpreters
Robert Nystrom
32 people recommended it in 18 threads, 2017–2025.
What people on Hacker News said
Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom is of similar quality. There are a lot of 'oh that's how that works' moments in this book.
An absolute joy to work through and provides enough technical detail to provide a good foundation without having to slog through compiler textbooks.
I think it's a good method for experienced programmers, who are self-taught (like me) or just want to brush up some skills and knowledge.
Even if you don’t care about language design, it’s a great way to get you to think about the tools we use everyday, how they get made, and why their limitations exist.
which walks you through implementing an interpreter (well, two actually) from scratch, a chapter at a time:
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