# Understanding and Writing Compilers by Richard Bornat

4 Hacker News commenters recommended Understanding and Writing Compilers by Richard Bornat and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a friendly, gentle overview of how to write a compiler, without heavy parsing theory.

## Why people recommend it

- Gentle overview without heavy parsing theory (2 comments): "it gives a friendly gentle overview of how to do it, without excessive quantities of parsing theory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47776850)) "gives a friendly gentle overview of how to do it, without excessive quantities of parsing theory" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47776845))
- Helped a reader write a transpiler (1 comments): "I like that book too, I bought it many decades ago and learned enough to write a transpiler" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777448))
- Written in BCPL (1 comments): "The fact that it is in BCPL is ultra cool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777171))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Aho, Sethi and Ullman](https://hackerapproved.com/p/compilers-principles-techniques-and-tools.md): 23 recommend
- [Modern Compiler Implementation by Andrew Appel](https://hackerapproved.com/p/modern-compiler-implementation.md): 9 recommend
- [Writing a C Compiler by Nora Sandler](https://hackerapproved.com/p/writing-a-c-compiler.md): 8 recommend
- [Engineering a Compiler by Cooper and Torczon](https://hackerapproved.com/p/engineering-a-compiler.md): 6 recommend
- [Compiler Construction by Niklaus Wirth](https://hackerapproved.com/p/compiler-construction.md): 4 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0333217314?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780333217313) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Understanding and Writing Compilers by Richard Bornat", https://hackerapproved.com/p/understanding-and-writing-compilers/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).