Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!world!iecc!compilers-sender
From: johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU (John D. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Experiences using Holub's Compiler Design in C ?
Keywords: books, question
Message-ID: <9377@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 1 Dec 90 00:50:47 GMT
References: <9011291759.AA06388@neuron.tamu.edu>
Sender: compilers-sender@iecc.cambridge.ma.us
Reply-To: johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU (John D. Mitchell)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 45
Approved: compilers@iecc.cambridge.ma.us

In article <9011291759.AA06388@neuron.tamu.edu> mcguire@cs.tamu.edu (Tim McGuire) writes:
>Has anyone out there used Allen Holub's Compiler Design in C for
>a compiler course?  I will be teaching a course this spring for
>senior undergraduates and would appreciate any feedback you may
>have to offer.

How about some feedback from a student?

I have just completed the undergraduate compiler class at UCB.  The
official text was the Dragon book.  I personally used Mr. Holub's book as
a supplementary text.  Since this course is designed as an introduction to
the fundamental computing ideas, techniques, and such (exemplified by
compiler design), the dragoon book can be daunting.  It presents a lot of
very dense material very quickly.  As my TA said "You have to already know
the stuff to be able to read the book."  I find that frustrating.  Good
lecturing by the professor (S. Graham) and my TA to clear most of the
confusion.

Reading Compiler Design in C was a nice change of pace.  It's very
readable.  Information is presented in a clear and quite easy to follow
manner.  Seeing (complete, working) code that did what we were to learn
was great.  The problem with all that code was that you could get lost
amid the details and lose track of the underlying theory.  Speaking of
theory, the book did gloss over the more complicated stuff in favor of the
code explanations and basics (Mr. Holub states this up front).  I wouldn't
hesitate to recommend it for an introductory class.  Just be prepared to
supplement the theory and watch out for the typos!

As a side note: One of the biggest problems in my class was the lack of
preparedness of the programming assignments.  They thought they could hack
one of the other professor's code to work for there language.  Oops!  That
left us students having to debug not only our code but theirs as well.
Please make sure that you (the management) has completed a working version
of each assignment before you give it out.  Also, proof-read the
assignment handouts.  We spent 5 hours tracking down a bug (in our
generated 68020 assembly) that ended up being due to wrong documentation.

Side note #2:  We worked in two person teams.  This works great!

Good luck,
	John D. Mitchell
	johnm@cory.Berkeley.EDU
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