Jack W. Crenshaw wrote the Let's Build a Compiler article series from 1988 - 1995. This document is a formatted version of that excellent non-technical introduction to compiler construction. These web pages were created in 2005, and port Mr. Crenshaw's original Pascal code for the 68000 under SK*OS to the Forth language on a 80x86 CPU, under Windows XP. The text files were downloaded from http://compilers.iecc.com/crenshaw/. They are highly recommended. In this transcript I have assumed a 32-bit, byte-addressing Forth, with 8-bit characters. Division is symmetric, not floored, and two's complement is assumed throughout. iForth works splendidly for it, but other Forths can do it too.
The Little Book of Semaphores is a free (in both senses of the word) textbook that introduces the principles of synchronization for concurrent programming. In most computer science curricula, synchronization is a module in an Operating Systems class. OS textbooks present a standard set of problems with a standard set of solutions, but most students don't get a good understanding of the material or the ability to solve similar problems. The approach of this book is to identify patterns that are useful for a variety of synchronization problems and then show how they can be assembled into solutions. After each problem, the book offers a hint before showing a solution, giving students a better chance of discovering solutions on their own. The book covers the classical problems, including "Readers-writers," "Producer-consumer", and "Dining Philosophers." In addition, it collects a number of not-so-classical problems