History of Compiler Construction

History Of Compiler Construction

In computing, a compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language or computer language (the source language), into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code or Machine code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.

Any program written in a high level programming language must be translated to object code before it can be executed, so all programmers using such a language use a compiler or an interpreter. Thus, compilers are very important to programmers. Any improvement to a compiler leads to a large number of improved executable programs.

Compilers are large and complex programs, but systematic analysis and research by computer scientists has led to a clearer understanding of compiler construction and a large body of theory has been developed around them. Research into compiler construction has led to tools that make it much easier to create compilers, so that today computer science students can create their own small language and develop a simple compiler for it in a few weeks.

Read more about History Of Compiler Construction:  First Compilers, Self-hosting Compilers, Context-free Grammars and Parsers, Grammar Description Languages, Parser Generators, Cross Compilation, Optimizing Compilers, Diagnostics, Notable Compilers, See Also

Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or construction:

    the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.
    Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)

    A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    There’s no art
    To find the mind’s construction in the face.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)