COMP 512: Advanced Compiler Construction
Professor Keith D. Cooper
Department of Computer Science
Rice University
Houston, Texas, USA
Spring 2013: Room 1042 Duncan Hall Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 10am
Course Syllabus

Announcements

Summary

COMP 512 examines a variety of topics that arise in the design and implementation of an optimizing compiler. It assumes the material covered in COMP 412 as background. It covers many topics and moves at a quick pace. This course does not cover automatic detection of parallelism; for that material, take COMP 515.

The course will rely on a large collection of technical papers. Most of the readings are available in digital form; I have collected them on a readings page that is accessible only from computers on the Rice campus. Bibliographic references appear on the lectures page, as well as embedded in the notes for individual lectures.

In addition to the papers, the course will rely on several chapters from Engineering a Compiler, 2nd Edition. Students who do not already have a copy of EaC2e should be able to use the copies on reserve for the class in Fondren Library.

Syllabus
The course syllabus provides current information on course policies and expectations.

Lectures
Lecture notes are posted online, typically before class. The lecture notes often have material beyond what is covered in the lecture.

Project
See the slides from class on the project.

If you are looking for more programs to test against, you might consider the benchmarks used last year in Comp 512.

Exams
The course will have a midterm and a final. The exams will be closed-notes, closed-book, take-home exams, of two to three hour duration.

For reference, the lectures page from the 2012 edition of COMP 512 is available.
It will give you an idea of what to expect in the course.
It can also provide you with bibligraphic references for specific topics.
This site is maintained by Keith D. Cooper.
He is a terrible e-mail correspondent.