Build Your Own Programming Language

Written by the creator of the Unicon programming language, this book will show you how to implement programming languages to reduce the time and cost of creating applications for new or specialized areas of computing Key Features Reduce development time and solve pain points in your application domain by building a custom programming language Learn how to create parsers, code generators, file readers, analyzers, and interpreters Create an alternative to frameworks and libraries to solve domain-specific problems Book Description The need for different types of computer languages is growing rapidly and developers prefer creating domain-specific languages for solving specific application domain problems. Building your own programming language has its advantages. It can be your antidote to the ever-increasing size and complexity of software. In this book, you'll start with implementing the frontend of a compiler for your language, including a lexical analyzer and parser. The book covers a series of traversals of syntax trees, culminating with code generation for a bytecode virtual machine. Moving ahead, you'll learn how domain-specific language features are often best represented by operators and functions that are built into the language, rather than library functions. We'll conclude with how to implement garbage collection, including reference counting and mark-and-sweep garbage collection. Throughout the book, Dr. Jeffery weaves in his experience of building the Unicon programming language to give better context to the concepts where relevant examples are provided in both Unicon and Java so that you can follow the code of your choice of either a very high-level language with advanced features, or a mainstream language. By the end of this book, you'll be able to build and deploy your own domain-specific languages, capable of compiling and running programs. What you will learn Perform requirements analysis for the new language and design language syntax and semantics Write lexical and context-free grammar rules for common expressions and control structures Develop a scanner that reads source code and generate a parser that checks syntax Build key data structures in a compiler and use your compiler to build a syntax-coloring code editor Implement a bytecode interpreter and run bytecode generated by your compiler Write tree traversals that insert information into the syntax tree Implement garbage collection in your language Who this book is for This book is for software developers interested in the idea of inventing their own language or developing a domain-specific language. Computer science students taking compiler construction courses will also find this book highly useful as a practical guide to language implementation to supplement more theoretical textbooks. Intermediate-level knowledge and experience working with a high-level language such as Java or the C++ language are expected to help you get the most out of this book.

Despite using them every day, most software engineers know little about how programming languages are designed and implemented. For many, their only experience with that corner of computer science was a terrifying "compilers" class that they suffered through in undergrad and tried to blot from their memory as soon as they had scribbled their last NFA to DFA conversion on the final exam. That fearsome reputation belies a field that is rich with useful techniques and not so difficult as some of its practitioners might have you believe. A better understanding of how programming languages are built will make you a stronger software engineer and teach you concepts and data structures you'll use the rest of your coding days. You might even have fun. This book teaches you everything you need to know to implement a full-featured, efficient scripting language. You'll learn both high-level concepts around parsing and semantics and gritty details like bytecode representation and garbage collection. Your brain will light up with new ideas, and your hands will get dirty and calloused. Starting from main(), you will build a language that features rich syntax, dynamic typing, garbage collection, lexical scope, first-class functions, closures, classes, and inheritance. All packed into a few thousand lines of clean, fast code that you thoroughly understand because you wrote each one yourself.

If you've ever wondered how to build your own programming language or wanted to learn C but weren't sure where to start, this is the book for you. In under 1000 lines of code you'll start building your very own programming language, and in doing so learn how to program in C, one of the world's most important programming languages. Along the way we'll learn about the weird and wonderful nature of Lisps, the unique techniques behind function programming, the methods used to concisely solve problems, and the art of writing beautiful code. Build Your Own Lisp is a fun and creative journey through a fascinating area of computer science, and an essential read for any programmer, new or old!

Learn to build configuration file readers, data readers, model-driven code generators, source-to-source translators, source analyzers, and interpreters. You don't need a background in computer science--ANTLR creator Terence Parr demystifies language implementation by breaking it down into the most common design patterns. Pattern by pattern, you'll learn the key skills you need to implement your own computer languages. Knowing how to create domain-specific languages (DSLs) can give you a huge productivity boost. Instead of writing code in a general-purpose programming language, you can first build a custom language tailored to make you efficient in a particular domain. The key is understanding the common patterns found across language implementations. Language Design Patterns identifies and condenses the most common design patterns, providing sample implementations of each. The pattern implementations use Java, but the patterns themselves are completely general. Some of the implementations use the well-known ANTLR parser generator, so readers will find this book an excellent source of ANTLR examples as well. But this book will benefit anyone interested in implementing languages, regardless of their tool of choice. Other language implementation books focus on compilers, which you rarely need in your daily life. Instead, Language Design Patterns shows you patterns you can use for all kinds of language applications. You'll learn to create configuration file readers, data readers, model-driven code generators, source-to-source translators, source analyzers, and interpreters. Each chapter groups related design patterns and, in each pattern, you'll get hands-on experience by building a complete sample implementation. By the time you finish the book, you'll know how to solve most common language implementation problems.

"Modern Compiler Design" makes the topic of compiler design more accessible by focusing on principles and techniques of wide application. By carefully distinguishing between the essential (material that has a high chance of being useful) and the incidental (material that will be of benefit only in exceptional cases) much useful information was packed in this comprehensive volume. The student who has finished this book can expect to understand the workings of and add to a language processor for each of the modern paradigms, and be able to read the literature on how to proceed. The first provides a firm basis, the second potential for growth.

This entirely revised second edition of Engineering a Compiler is full of technical updates and new material covering the latest developments in compiler technology. In this comprehensive text you will learn important techniques for constructing a modern compiler. Leading educators and researchers Keith Cooper and Linda Torczon combine basic principles with pragmatic insights from their experience building state-of-the-art compilers. They will help you fully understand important techniques such as compilation of imperative and object-oriented languages, construction of static single assignment forms, instruction scheduling, and graph-coloring register allocation. In-depth treatment of algorithms and techniques used in the front end of a modern compiler Focus on code optimization and code generation, the primary areas of recent research and development Improvements in presentation including conceptual overviews for each chapter, summaries and review questions for sections, and prominent placement of definitions for new terms Examples drawn from several different programming languages

The official book on the Rust programming language, written by the Rust development team at the Mozilla Foundation, fully updated for Rust 2018. The Rust Programming Language is the official book on Rust: an open source systems programming language that helps you write faster, more reliable software. Rust offers control over low-level details (such as memory usage) in combination with high-level ergonomics, eliminating the hassle traditionally associated with low-level languages. The authors of The Rust Programming Language, members of the Rust Core Team, share their knowledge and experience to show you how to take full advantage of Rust's features--from installation to creating robust and scalable programs. You'll begin with basics like creating functions, choosing data types, and binding variables and then move on to more advanced concepts, such as: Ownership and borrowing, lifetimes, and traits Using Rust's memory safety guarantees to build fast, safe programs Testing, error handling, and effective refactoring Generics, smart pointers, multithreading, trait objects, and advanced pattern matching Using Cargo, Rust's built-in package manager, to build, test, and document your code and manage dependencies How best to use Rust's advanced compiler with compiler-led programming techniques You'll find plenty of code examples throughout the book, as well as three chapters dedicated to building complete projects to test your learning: a number guessing game, a Rust implementation of a command line tool, and a multithreaded server. New to this edition: An extended section on Rust macros, an expanded chapter on modules, and appendixes on Rust development tools and editions.

A compiler translates a program written in a high level language into a program written in a lower level language. For students of computer science, building a compiler from scratch is a rite of passage: a challenging and fun project that offers insight into many different aspects of computer science, some deeply theoretical, and others highly practical. This book offers a one semester introduction into compiler construction, enabling the reader to build a simple compiler that accepts a C-like language and translates it into working X86 or ARM assembly language. It is most suitable for undergraduate students who have some experience programming in C, and have taken courses in data structures and computer architecture.