Quoting Rafael 'Dido' Sevilla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I would give traditional compiler design books as > another bad example of using heavy math where it is > not absolutely necessary to the motivation of the subject. > Had I never read Kernighan and Pike's book where they > present a programmable calculator project using Lex > and Yacc in an accessible way I would have been put off > compiler design totally. The Dragon Book is not something > I would recommend to beginning CS students > as an elementary introduction to the craft of compiler > design.
But the "Dragon Book" does not use heavy math. The worst stuff there is the construction of LR(1) parse tables, which involves taking the completion of LR(1) sets of items and computing GOTO sets. And it is not even math, but computer science! In fact, the "Dragon Book" is so good for college students that Eric Vidal tutored himself (with minor supervision from me) using the book. He even wrote a flex-workalike, and if I did not stop, he might have written a bison workalike. Pablo Manalastas -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
