January 2026
Intermediate to advanced
372 pages
8h 14m
English
Content preview from Building Programming Language Interpreters
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1
Defining the Scope
In this chapter, we will focus on defining the target programming language and interpreter that we will develop throughout this book. We will cover the following aspects:
- Reflecting on the continuing desire to refine the programming language landscape with new ideas
- Exploring how domain-specific languages help solve targeted problems
- Understanding how building an interpreter can help to iterate on language design
- Defining the use case that will serve as our exercise through this book
- Discussing how this new language needs to interact with existing ecosystems
By the end of this chapter, you will have a new appreciation for the diversity of programming languages in our ecosystem. You will also be more knowledgeable about ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.