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A Map of the Territory · Crafting Interpreters

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You must have a map, no matter how rough. Otherwise you wander all over the place. In The Lord of the Rings I never made anyone go farther than he could on a given day. J. R. R. Tolkien We don’t want to wander all over the place, so before we set off, let’s scan the territory charted by previous language implementers. It will help us understand where we are going and the alternate routes others have taken. First, let me establish a shorthand. Much of this book is about a language’s implementation, which is distinct from the language itself in some sort of Platonic ideal form. Things like “stack”, “bytecode”, and “recursive descent”, are nuts and bolts one particular implementation might use. From the user’s perspective, as long as the resulting contraption faithfully follows the language’s specification, it’s all implementation detail. We’re going to spend a lot of time on those details, so if I have to write “language implementation” every single time I mention them, I’ll wear my fing

2 A Map of the Territory You must have a map, no matter how rough. Otherwise you wander all over the place. In The Lord of the Rings I never made anyone go farther than he could on a given day. J. R. R. Tolkien We don't want to wander all over the place, so before we set off, let's scan the territory charted by previous language implementers. It will help us understand where we are going and the alternate routes others have taken. First, let me establish a shorthand. Much of this book is about a language's implementation , which is distinct from the language itself in some sort of Platonic ide

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