Learning how programming languages work

Question

I\'ve been programming for years (mainly Python), but I don\'t understand what happens behind the scenes when I compile or execute my code.

In the vein of a question I a

Answer 1

If you want to know how one goes from source code to something that actually runs on a target machine, you should get a copy of the famous Red Dragon Book. I've used it for building parsers and lexical analyzers. While it dates back to 1986, and I'm sure there's been progress in the interim, as far as I can tell, it hasn't been surpassed as a text.

It appears that Addison-Wesley has done a reprint of its predecessor, the Green Dragon Book, and is passing it off as something recent, so be careful to get the genuine article.