Comment by waynesonfire
6 years ago
I never took a compilers class during university study and it is my greatest regret. I've since been self learning and it hasn't been easy.
Thanks for advocating for the importance of compilers. This lack of knowledge has been a limiter for me many times. I'd really like to fill a skill gap and be able to write a DSL or a little language to solve a problem.
From my experience in industry, while hardly any programmer will ever need to write a modern code generator, few things are more useful in practise than being able quickly to design a suitable DSL and implement a corresponding performant and correct lexer and parser. This is not something that can easily be picked up on the side.
In addition, understanding what happens under-the-hood when you program in a high-level language is an eye-opening experience for many students. This sentiment comes up in student evaluations year-in, year-out.