a Knowledgebased Approach to Program Understanding

Optimizing compilers have a fundamental problem. No matter how powerful their optimizations are, they are no substitute for good application algorithms. Consider the case of sorting. For sufficiently large data sets, a merge sort algorithm compiled with a less powerful optimizer will always out-perform a selection sort algorithm compiled with the most powerful optimizer.

This text provides a practical, comprehensive overview of the different phases and activities involved in developing and implementing a sound, rational, and effective language program.