A curated list of awesome resources, learning materials, tools, frameworks, platforms, technologies and source code projects in the field of Compilers, Interpreters and Runtimes. This list has a bias towards education.
- Learning
- Tools and Frameworks
- Compilers and Interpreters
- Runtimes and VMs
- Blogs
- Communities
- Verticals
- Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective, R. Bryant, D. O'Hallaron - Comprehensive treatement of Computer Systems including Compilers, Interpreters and Runtimes.
- Elements of Computing Systems, N. Nisan, S. Schocken - How to build a computer starting with Nand Logic Gates and then move to Machine Code, Assemblers, Compilers and Operating Systems.
- SICP, H. Abelson, G. Sussman - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
- Basics of Compiler Design, T. Mogensen.
- Beautiful Racket - How to Make Your Own PL with Racket, M. Butterick.
- Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools - The Dragons Book (2nd Edition).
- Crafting Interpreters: A Handbook for Making Programming Languages, B. Nystrom.
- GitHub Repo.
- Discussions: HN.
- Create Your Own Programming Language.
- Discussions: HN.
- Engineering a Compiler, K. Cooper, L. Torczon.
- Essentials of Programming Languages, D. Friedman & M. Wand.
- Language Implementation Patterns, T. Parr.
- Modern Compiler Implementation in ML, A. Appel.
- Other editions: MCI in C, MCI in Java.
- Programming Language Pragmatics, M. Scott.
- Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation, S. Krishnamurthi.
- PDF.
- Programming Languages: Theory and Practice.
- Project Oberon, N. Wirth & J. Gutknecht.
- Other editions: 2013 Edition.
- The BEAM Book - Description of the ERTS (Erlang Runtime System) and the BEAM Virtual Machine.
- Virtual Machines, Smith and Nait.
- Virtual Machines, Iain Craig.
- Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation, S. Muchnick.
- Advanced Topics in Types and Programming Languages, B. Pierce.
- Building an Optimizing Compiler, B. Morgan.
- Compiling with Continuations, A. Appel.
- Design Concepts in Programming Languages, F. Turbak, D. Gifford, M. Sheldon - also contains some introductory level material.
- Instruction Level Parallelism, A. Aiken, U. Banerjee, A. Kejariwal, A. Nicolau.
- Linkers and Loaders.
- Optimizing Compilers for Modern Architectures, R. Allen & K. Kennedy.
- Parsing Techniques: A Practical Guide.
- The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management, R. Jones, A. Hosking, E. Moss.
- The SSA Book, Springer, Zadeck.
- Types and Programming Languages, B. Pierce.
- Warren's Abstract Machine - Prolog in Haskell, H. Aït-Kaci.
- A Brief History of JIT Compilation, J. Aycock.
- A Flexible Prolog Interpreter in Python, C. Bolz & M. Leuschel.
- A Graph Higher-Order IR, R. Leißa, M. Koster & S. Hack.
- A Prolog Interpreter in Python, C. Bolz.
- A Simple Multi-Processor Computer Based on Subleq, O. Mazonka, A. Kolodin.
- Compiler Construction Using Scheme, E. Hilsdale, J. Ashley, R. Dybvig & D. Friedman.
- Compiling with Continuations: Continued, A. Kennedy.
- Draining the Swamp: Micro Virtual Machines as Solid Foundation for Languauage Development, K. Wang, Y. Lin, S. Blackburn, M. Norrish & A. Hosking.
- Machine Code Obfuscation via Instruction Set Reduction and CFG Linearization, C. Jonischkeit.
MOVis Turing-Complete, S. Dolan.- Nanopass Framework for Commercial Compiler Development, A. Keep & R. Dybvig.
- Nanopass Framework for Compiler Education, D. Sarkar, O. Waddell & R. Dybvig.
- Notes on Graph Algorithms Used in Optimizing Compilers, C. Offner.
- Packrat Parsing Thesis on PEG, B. Ford.
- PEG-based transformer provides front-end, middle-end and back-end stages in a simple Compiler, I. Piumarta.
- Pycket: A Tracing JIT for a Functional Language.
- PyPy’s Approach to VM Construction, A. Rigo & S. Pedroni.
- Simple and Efficient Construction of SSA Form.
- SSA-based Register Allocation, S. Hack & G. Goos.
- The Essence of Compiling with Continuations, C. Flanagan, A. Sabry, B. Duba & M. Felleisen.
- The Page-Faults Weird Machine: Lessons in Instruction-less Computation, J. Bangert, S. Bratus, R. Shapiro, S. Smith.
- Trace-based JIT Compilation for Lazy Functional Languages, T. Schilling.
- Using Datalog with Binary Decision Diagrams for Program Analysis, J. Whaley, D. Avots, M. Carbin & M. Lam.
- C. Bolz’s Research Publications.
- Compilers Lab at Saarland University.
- Packrat Parsing (PEG) Papers and Resources.
- Compilers Construction, Cambridge - Introduction to compiler construction course from the University of Cambridge.
- Compiler Construction for Undergrads, RICE University - Introduction to compiler construction and language translators course from the RICE University.
- Compilers Theory, Stanford - YouTube, Stanford.edu, Class Notes -Introduction to Compilers theory and construction course from Stanford.
- Design and Construction of Compilers, University of Texas - Design and construction of compilers including lexical analysis, parsing, code generation techniques, error analysis and simple code optimizations.
- DSL Design and Implementation Summer School - Summer School program on the topics of DSL Design and Implementation hosted by the EPFL University.
- Foundations of Programming Languages - Concepts that underlie the design, definition, implementation and use of modern programming languages from a formal standpoint.
- Nand2Tetris: How to Build a Computer from First Principles, Part 2 - This 2nd part of the Nand2Tetris course covers basic language design and elementary compiler construction concepts in addition to many other topics on a basic level.
- NPTEL's Principles of Compiler Design Course - Introductory course from NPTEL on Compiler Design.
- NPTEL's Compiler Design Course - Slightly more advanced course than their Principles of Compiler Design course, covers SSA Form to a good degree.
- Programming Languages: Part A, by Grossman - Part 1 of a 3-part course series to the basic concepts of programming languages, with a strong emphasis on functional programming.
- Programming Languages: Part B, by Grossman - Part 2 of a 3-part course series to the basic concepts of programming languages, with a strong emphasis on functional programming.
- Programming Languages: Part C, by Grossman - Part 3 of a 3-part course series to the basic concepts of programming languages, with a strong emphasis on functional programming.
- Types, Logic, Semantics, and Verification from Oregon University's Summer School - Summer School program that consists of 80 minute lectures presented by internationally recognized leaders in programming languages and formal reasoning research.
- Virtual Machines and Managed Runtimes, UCB CS294 - Introductory course on Virtual Machines and Managed Runtimes from the University of Berkeley.
- Virtual Machines Summer School 2016 (VMSS 2016) - VMSS is a Summer School program that aims to give an overview of the field, targeted at early career researchers.
- Curry On! Conference - Programming Languages Conference.
- Lang.NEXT Conference 2012.
- Lang.NEXT Conference 2014.
- LLVM Developers Meeting YouTube Channel.
- Anders Hejlsberg on Modern Compiler Construction.
- An Introduction to Combinator Compilers and Graph Reduction Machines.
- Building an Interpreter in RPython.
- Exploring Python’s Bytecode.
- Java AOT (Ahead of Time) Compilation.
- MetaScala: A Tiny DIY JVM - Metascala is a tiny metacircular Java Virtual Machine (JVM) written in the Scala programming language.
- Meta-Tracing, RPython and PyPy.
- One VM to Rule Them All, One VM to Bind Them - Tutorial on the Truffel technology.
- Python, Linkers and Virtual Memory - PYCON US.
- Reverse Engineering the MOS 6502 CPU.
- Single Static Assignment Form Seminar - Introductory seminar on SSA Form, Compiler Optimizations under it and its applications in other areas such as Program Analysis and Verification.
- The JVM (Java Virtual Machine) Architecture.
- The MoVfuscator: turning mov into a soul crushing RE nightmare.
- The SSA Form - Video Lectures from NPTEL's Compilers Course (see: Courses for more info):
- Type-Driven Development with Idris.
- Understanding Compiler Optimization.
- A Tourist’s Guide to the LLVM Source Code.
- Accidentally Turing Complete.
- Adventures in JIT Compilation by Eli Bendersky:
- ALIVe: Automatic LLVM InstCombine Verifier.
- Graal and Truffel - Obscure research project could radically accelerate innovation in programming language design.
- Discussions: Reddit.
- How to Compile with Continuations.
- Interpreter, Compiler and JIT.
- Introducing the B3 JIT Compiler.
- LLVM Architecture - Chapter from the book Architecture of Open Source Applications.
- LLVM for Graduate Students - Introduction to doing research with the LLVM compiler infrastructure.
- Pratt Parsers: Expression Parsing Made Easy.
- Rust Compiler Walk-Through.
- Rust's Incremental Compilation.
- Rust’s Upcoming MIR.
- The Memory Models that Underlie Programming Languages.
- A Tutorial Implementation of a Dependently Typed Lambda Calculus.
- Algorithm W Step By Step.
- Compiler Optmization Tutorial.
- How I Wrote a Programming Language, and How You Can Too.
- Discussions: Reddit.
- Implementing a JIT Compiled Language with Haskell and LLVM.
- Kaleidoscope: Implementing a Language with LLVM in Objective Caml.
- Let’s Build A Simple Interpreter.
- Lisperator - How to implement a programming language in JavaScript.
- LLVM Tutorial: Implementing Kaleidoscope.
- Metacompiler Tutorial, Part 1.
- Project: A Programming Language - Chapter 11 from the book Eloquent JavaScript, 2nd Edition.
- Write You a Haskell.
- Writing a Language in Truffel - Interpreter development tutorial using Truffel, by Cristian Esquivias.
- Can we stop recommending the Dragon Book, please? - StackExchange thread criticising the Dragons Book in favor of alternatives.
- What is difference between an LL and Recursive Descent parser?.
- Does a compiler use all x86 instructions? - @HN, @Reddit - Article discussions on HN and Reddit.
- How to Write a Compiler - Article discussion on Reddit.
- How to Write a Very Basic Compiler.
- How to Write a Prolog Interpreter in a Purely Functional Language.
- Discussions: Reddit.
- Implementing Type Inference.
- I want to build a VM, any good references?.
- Resources for Amatuer Compilers Writers.
- What are the good open source implementations of Java Virtual Machine?.
- What are the latest research trends in Compilers and PLs.
- B3: The Bare Bones Backend - WebKit's optimizing JIT Compiler for procedures containing C-like code.
- LLILCL - LLVM-based Compiler Backend for .NET Core.
- LLVM - The LLVM Compiler-Backend Framework.
- MicroVM - The "Mu" Framewrok for Programming Languages development based on the MuVM Specification.
- Movfuscator Compiler - The
M/o/Vfuscatorcompiles programs into "mov" instructions, and only "mov" instructions. - QBE: The Quick Backend - Pure C embeddable SSA-based compiler backend.
- Rubinius - Programming Languages Development Platform.
- Summus - Basic, reusable, compiler-frontend implementation using LLVM as a backend.
- GCC - The GNU Compiler Collection.
- LCC - The lcc retargetable ANSI C compiler.
- libFirm - C-library that provides a graph-based intermediate representation, optimizations, and assembly code generation suitable for use in compilers.
- libJIT - Library for generic Just-In-Time compiler functionality independent of any particular bytecode, language, or runtime.
- myJIT - Library for machine-code generation and execution at run-time.
- PCC - The Portable C Compiler.
- TCC - The Tiny C Compiler.
- Cecil - Library to generate and inspect programs and libraries in the ECMA CIL format.
- ILSpy - .NET Decompiler.
- Reflector - .NET Decompiler.
- Reflexil - Assembly code editor which can be used as a plugin with other .NET/CLR tools.
- dunnart - LALR(1) Parser Generator.
- FancyPars-lite - Fast parser generator.
- libdparse - Library allowing to build lexers and parsers. Contains a lexer and a parser for the D language itself.
- llvm-d - D bindings for LLVM.
- Pegged - design, test and generate parsers for PEG grammars.
- Graal - High-Performance Polyglot Runtime.
- Graal Core - Compiler and Truffel Partial Evaluator.
- Graal VM - Graal's multi-language VM distribution.
- Bound / unbound / unbound-generics - Libraries for manipulating bound variables.
- Hoopl - Higher-order optimization library.
- llvm-general - Haskell bindings for LLVM.
- Parsec / attoparsec / Megaparsec / Trifecta / Alex + Happy - Parsers for every use case.
- wl-pprint-text / ansi-wl-pprint - Walder-style pretty-printing libraries.
- IRHudra - Tool for displaying intermediate representations used by V8 and Dart VM optimizing compilers.
- JISON - Context-free grammar parser generator for JavaScript.
- PEG.js - Simple parser generator for JavaScript.
- ANTLR - Parser generator for reading, processing, executing, or translating structured text or binary files.
- BYAAC/J - BYACC/Java is an extension of the Berkeley v 1.8 YACC-compatible parser generator for Java.
- CGLIB - High level API library for generating and transforming Java Byte Code.
- FCP JVM - JVM Backend for generating Java Byte Code that conforms to the JDK v1.5+ Specification and the Dalvik VM.
- JavaCC - Java Compiler Construction and Parser Generator Toolkit.
- JFlex - JFlex is a lexical analyzer generator for Java with full Unicode support.
- JLex - JLex is a lexical analyzer generator, that can be used in combination with CUP.
- The Whimsy Compiler Framework - Compiler framework research project in Kotlin.
- AST - Python's builtin Abstract Syntax Tree package.
- Dis - Python's builtin Disassembler package.
- Parsing - Pure-Python module that implements an LR(1) parser generator, as well as CFSM and GLR parser drivers.
- PLY - Implementation of lex and yacc parsing tools for Python.
- PyParsing - Alternative approach to creating and executing simple grammars, vs. the traditional lex/yacc approach, or the use of regular expressions.
- RPLY - Port of the PLY project to RPython.
- RPython - RPython is a framework for the implementatation of dynamic languages.
- Combine - Parser Combinator Library for Rust.
- IronLLVM - Safe LLVM bindings for Rust.
- LALRPOP - LR(1) parser generator for Rust.
- Nom - Parser Combinator Framework.
- PEG - PEG Parser Generator.
- Pest - PEG Parser Generator.
- RLS - The Rust Language Server implementation (aka RLS).
This section aims at listing code projects of Compilers, Interpreters, Translators, Runtimes, Virtual Machines and the like.
- Babel.js - Next-generation JavaScript Compiler.
- Chez Scheme's Compiler - ChezScheme Language Compiler.
- Gluon's Compiler - Embedded Language Compiler written in Rust.
- Lily's Interpreter.
- Lua's Interpreter - Official Lua Language Interperter.
- Lua's Annotated Source Code - Annotated source code of the Lua Programming Language Interpreter v5.1.4.
- Mirah's Compiler - JVM-based Compiler for Mirah Language.
- Nim's Compiler.
- Red's Compiler.
- Roslyn - The .NET "Roslyn" Compiler Platform.
- TypeScript's Compiler.
- Wren's Compiler.
- C4 - C Lang in 4 Functions.
- Discussions: HN.
- CarpVM - Experimental VM implementation in C.
- Dale - Lisp-flavoured C: a system programming language.
- Gecho - Simple-stack language implementation in C.
- Hython - Haskell-powered Python 3 interpreter.
- Discussions: Reddit.
- MetaScala - Metacircular JVM implementation in Scala.
- mini-js - Experimental self-hosted JavaScript compiler in 1K LoC.
- Poprc - Compiler for the Popr Language.
- PyCOOLC - Compiler for the COOL Programming Language written in Python 3.
- RabbitVM - RISC-based VM implementation in C.
- stack_cpu - Stack-machine simulator.
- The Super Tiny Compiler - Tiny educational compiler project in JavaScript.
- Discussions: HN.
- tinyc.c - Tiny-C language compiler in C.
- CakeML.
- CoreCLR - The .NET's Common Language Runtime.
- Erlang BEAM.
- HHVM - Facebook's Open Source VM for running Hack and PHP programs.
- HLVM.
- JVM Implementations:
- Eli Bendersky.
- John Regehr.
- Krister Walfridsson.
- Lambda The Ultimate.
- LLVM Developers' Meetings.
- LLVM Weekly - Weekly newsletter about LLVM.
- /r/Compilers - Subreddit community about the theory and development of compilers.
- /r/ProgrammingLanguages - Subreddit community that is dedicated to discussion of programming languages, programming language theory, design, their syntax and compilers.
- Awesome Static Analysis.
- Compiler Conferences, Workshops and Journals.
- Languages and Compilers Network Graph.
- PLT Enlightenment.
- Resources for Amateur Compiler Writers.
- SSA Form Bibliography.
- Summer Schools.
- The Witchcraft Compiler Collection.
- TypeFunc.
To the extent possible under law, Ahmad Alhour has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
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