"Stéphane Payrard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have bought "Virtual Machine Design and Implementation in C++" > by Bill Blunden. This book has very positive reviews (see > slashdot or amazon.com). It seems to impress people by the > apparent width of covered topics. Most of it is off topic. The > book gives to the moderately knowledgeable reader no insight > about virtual machines or even about language compilation.
I reviewed it for Slashdot, and posted a mini-review here too. I saw the technical and design limitations, but enjoyed it none-the-less. On reflection, perhaps a more accurate title for the book would have been "Design and Implementation of /A/ Virtual Machine in C/C++". I don't think the book's target audience was those who want to become authorities on virtual machines, or learn about every advanced topic. I think Bill wanted to catch the people who come from a totally different area of computer science, who want to get an insight into virtual machine design and implementation at a basic level. The book certainly achieves something for those people, as it did for me, and whets the appetite to go and learn more from real 'hands on' projects like Parrot. The knowledge you can get from the book, however, is more than enough to have a far better understanding of how Parrot works and operates than before you read it. At least, I found this to be the case. I also found the lack of information on jitting to be a shame, but it's not a hard topic to pick up externally after reading and understanding the rest. As a view into how man chose to design and implement /a/ virtual machine, I consider the book invaluable. He certainly does quite a few things wrong, and has limitations in his design, but someone who is competent will recognize this, as you have, and use it as a learning and mind-expanding experience. Not everyone who has studied computer science will have covered all of the topics demonstrated in this book. Regards, Peter Cooper
