Comment by vanderZwan

> I find that WASM has a beautifully readable spec. One of its best features!

Disclaimer: I'm one of the guys whose face is advertising this book, as someone who bought the early access version and loved it enough to help a bit with proofreading.

I'm a self-taught programmer who essentially started from the lowest level with Z80 assembly on the TI-83+. I just wanted to know how to fit the bytes together directly without dealing with the rest of the toolchain.

I've tried reading the spec multiple times and what it revealed to me is that my lack of formal training in the subject matter is really holding me back here. I feel like I can follow 90% of it, but that doesn't matter really. It's the remaining 10% I don't understand that does.

The spec is written as a reference and gives you all the pieces, but doesn't really do a great job at fitting all the pieces together.

Everyone I know who does have some relevant background to compiler writing agrees with you though. So I think that for them it's obvious how to fit the pieces together.

Speaking for myself though, this is the first book that made the bytecode "click" as a whole.

Having said that, I think this book and the spec together are the real combo to go for. The book covers the core, and understanding that foundation makes all the extensions easy to grasp from spec alone.