Who this is for

This book is for anyone wanting to learn C, or who has once wondered how to build their own programming language. This book is not suitable as a first programming language book, but anyone with some minimal programming experience, in any language, should find something new and interesting inside.

Ada Lovelace • Your typical brogrammer.

I’ve tried to make this book as friendly as possible to beginners. I welcome beginners the most because they have so much to discover! But beginners may also find this book challenging. We will be covering many new concepts, and essentially learning two new programming languages at once.

If you look for help you may find people are not patient with you. You may find that, rather than help, they take the time to express how much they know about the subject. Experienced programmers might tell you that you are wrong. The subtext to their tone might be that you should stop now, rather than inflict your bad code on the world.

After a couple of engagements like this you may decide that you are not a programmer, or don’t really like programming, or that you just don’t get it. You may have thought that you once enjoyed the idea of building your own programming language, but now you have realised that it is too abstract and you don’t care any more. You are now concerned with your other passions, and any insight that may have been playful, joyful or interesting will now have become an obstacle.

For this I can only apologise. Programmers can be hostile, macho, arrogant, insecure, and aggressive. There is no excuse for this behaviour. Know that I am on your side. No one gets it at first. Everyone struggles and doubts their abilities. Please don’t give up or let the joy be sucked out of the creative experience. Be proud of what you create no matter what it is. People like me don’t want you to stop programming. We want to hear your voice, and what you have to say.