Modern Compiler Implementation in ML

I don't think there is a definitive answer for your question because computer science is a relative new area of knowledge and “fundamental books” are still being published. If I had to say one text that is the fundamental one, I would go with a paper: “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” [1], by Alan Turing. --- But if you just started your course in Computer Science, then I will give you some “bookshelf advice" based on my experience. I had the pleasure to study all the books I am going to recommend you, and most of them I was able to read cover-to-cover during the university years. And they are also in my bookshelf for reference. The book order does not represent rank of importance. * “Introduction to the Theory of Computation”, by Michael Sipser. * I also recommend the “Elements of the Theory of Computation”, by Christos Papadimitriou. * Another good complement is “Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation”, by Hopcroft and Ullman. (Thanks, @reacweb, for the reminder.) * “Graph Theory”, by Reinhard Diestel.…

Hey, I seconded this, the Dragons Book is not the best textbook or introduction to the topic, there are a lot of better ones. The Dragons Book is more of a classic. If you want to read a good book on compilers construction then you're better off reading "Engineering a Compiler" by K. Cooper and L. Torczon or "Modern Compiler Implementation in ML" by A. Appel. If you want more resources on Compilers other than books, such as tutorials, guides, talks and papers, then go ahead and check the Awesome Compilers vertical I compiled a while ago: https://github.com/aalhour/awesome-compilers Cheers!

I second this. Build a compiler from scratch. Main annoyance is that it uses SML - most readers are likely to want to use OCaml, and it's a bit fiddly translating between the two.

Modern Compiler Implementation in ML by Andrew Appel