Computing, IT & AI

The Dragon Book on compilers

1986 CEAlfred Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey UllmanCompilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (Addison-Wesley, 1986)Diaspora (work abroad)

1986

The standard textbook on how programming languages are translated into machine code.

Dated: 1986
As scholars put it: 1986 CE
Originator: Alfred Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey Ullman
Source text: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (Addison-Wesley, 1986)
Region: Diaspora (work abroad)
Discipline: Computing, IT & AI
Evidence: Documented
Confidence: High
Verification: Verified-web

Background

Ravi Sethi, born in Punjab and educated at IIT Kanpur and Princeton, worked at Bell Labs. With Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman he wrote this 1986 book, called the Dragon Book after its cover. It covers lexical analysis, parsing, type checking, code generation and optimisation.

Significance

Has taught compiler construction to generations of computer scientists, including many who built today's programming languages and tools.

Fair to say

A textbook that organised the field rather than an invention. The grammar notation it teaches (BNF) has been compared with Panini's rules, but was developed independently.

Path to modern innovation

Still a core reference; Monica Lam joined for the 2006 edition.

Global impact

Standard curriculum for compiler courses worldwide.