#123 overallRisingHidden gem
Write a Compiler
David Beazley
3 recommenders · 3 threads · recommended in 3 years, 2023–2026 · score 3.5
A hands-on course by David Beazley in which participants build a small programming language and compiler from scratch, using LLVM as the backend. It is aimed at experienced programmers.
Commenters call it an amazing, mind-blowing experience for building a compiler, praising Beazley as a great teacher who explains things by building them from nothing.
Recommendations by year
20062026
I took Dave’s “Write a compiler” course several years ago, and it was mind-blowing in the absolute best sense of the term. What a great teacher and person.
Programmers are worse off for his retirement, but (given his career change) Chicago-area high school kids are in for a real treat.
Only a happy customer, but if you want an amazing experience building a compiler I highly recommend David Beazley's Compiler Course (or anything else you can sign up for) https://www.dabeaz.com/
I've taken 2 of David Beazley's courses.[1] And, I highly recommend them. If you haven't seen some of his talks, he's very good at explaining things by building them from nothing.
I took 2 courses: "Rafting Trip" and "Write a Compiler". Both were awesome. The Rafting Trip took us through implementing the Raft consensus algorithm from scratch. And the "Write a Compiler" course had us build a small language using LLVM.
Both courses (but especially the Rafting trip one) were definitely for experienced programmers. In the courses I took, people generally had at least 5 years of professional work. And even still, there were a few people that really struggled to stay on pace in the course.
But at the end, most people had a (kinda) working Raft library or compiler!
[1] https://dabeaz.com/