Linkers and Loaders
Linkers and Loaders by John R. Levineby John R. Levine
Shares rank 38 of 115 programming books by recommenders
Recommended as the reference on linkers and loaders for anyone building compilers, assemblers or VMs, with no close equal.
Recommended as the reference on linkers and loaders for anyone building compilers, assemblers or VMs, with no close equal.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
No comparable alternative exists
“I'm not sure if there's anything comparable to it.”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “GNU IFUNC is the real culprit behind CVE-2024-3094” “has no equal despite being a bit dated”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Want to Write a Compiler? Just Read These Two Papers (2008)” Useful for building compilers and assemblers
“must read for anyone writing custom VMs, assemblers and compilers”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Linkers and Loaders” Strong reference on linking and loading
“John Levine's Linkers and Loaders is also a great reference”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Mathematics for Computer Science (2018) [pdf]”
Other programming books people recommend
The four most recommended other programming books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Interpretersby Robert Nystrom | 60 | 4 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Clean Codeby Robert C. Martin | 31 | 87 | 26% | 9 | — | — |
| The Pragmatic Programmerby Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas | 28 | 1 | 97% | 7 | — | Approved |
| How to Design Programsby Matthias Felleisen and Robert Bruce Findler and Matthew Flatt and Shriram Krishnamurthi | 18 | 2 | 90% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Linkers and Loadersby John R. LevineThis page | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
4 of the 5 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I'm not sure if there's anything comparable to it.”
“has no equal despite being a bit dated”
“must read for anyone writing custom VMs, assemblers and compilers”
“John Levine's Linkers and Loaders is also a great reference”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.