Benoît Perrot

A set of tools to teach compiler construction

By Akim Demaille, Roland Levillain, Benoît Perrot

2008-03-29

In Proceedings of the thirteenth annual conference on innovation and technology in computer science education (ITICSE’08)

Abstract

Compiler construction is a widely used software engineering exercise, but because most students will not be compiler writers, care must be taken to make it relevant in a core curriculum. Auxiliary tools, such as generators and interpreters, often hinder the learning: students have to fight tool idiosyncrasies, mysterious errors, and other poorly educative issues. We introduce a set of tools especially designed or improved for compiler construction educative projects in . We also provide suggestions about new approaches to compiler construction. We draw guidelines from our experience to make tools suitable for education purposes.

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