/r/ProgrammingLanguages Reading List

This is a list of valuable resources for programming language design and implementation.

If contributing, add your resource to the appropriate section, give a short description and appropriate credit. Keep sections in alphabetical order.

Online resources

Build Your Own Lisp by Daniel Holden

A book that serves both as a tutorial on C and writing a Lisp interpreter.
Crafting Interpreters by Bob Nystrom (/u/munificent)

A book about writing interpreters by Bob Nystrom of Game Programming Patterns fame. Very comprehensive, includes code both in Java and C.
Let’s Build a Compiler by Jack Crenshaw

An old (1988-1995), non-technical series about writing a simple compiler in Turbo Pascal. Like most books on this topic, most of the knowledge contained within is still relevant today, though.

A Nanopass Framework for Compiler Education - Dipanwita Sarkar, Oscar Waddell, R. Kent Dybvig

A paper describing compilers as series of transformations in dozens of small compiler passes.

Rosetta Code

Collects solutions to the same problem in as many different programming languages as possible. Helpful for seeing how other languages handle certain tasks, and getting a better idea of what your syntax will be like.

So You Want to Build a Language VM by Fletcher Haynes

A series of articles detailing how to build a register VM in Rust. A part 0 covering some of hardware basics - like what’s an assembler, a register, etc. - is also available.

Compiler Design and Construction - Arthur Pyster

Guides the reader through implementing a Pascal compiler, explaining both the technical and practical details.
Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools - Alfred V. Aho, Monica S. Lam, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman

The Dragon Book. Classic text, but much is outdated, and a beginner won’t be able to tell which. There’s more modern and approachable books, such as:
Engineering a Compiler - Keith Cooper, Linda Torczon

In-depth treatment of algorithms and techniques used in a modern compiler, focused on code optimization and generation, with examples from multiple languages.
Modern Compiler Design - Dick Grune, Ceriel Jacobs, Koen G. Langendoen, Kees van Reeuwijk, Henri Bal

Often recommended as the more up-to-date and approachable alternative to the dragon book; along with it and Engineering a Compiler, the “holy trinity” of compiler implementation books.
Modern Compiler Implementation in ML - Andrew W. Appel

A complete walkthrough and discussion of implementing a robust, feature-rich compiler in ML; there’s also Java and C translations.

RPython

Toolchain for writing complete interpreters in a statically typed subset of Python; gives you a garbage collector and JIT interpreter for free. Used by PyPy, Lever, Monte, Pixie.
The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project

Collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies. Very powerful. Additional LLVM resources. Major LLVM compilers: Clang, Rustc, Swift, GHC(?), Pony.
WebAssembly

Native assembly target for the browser. Additional WebAssembly resources.