Chapter 1: introduction

- programming languages classification
  + what makes a successful programming language?
  + declarative languages (definition)
    - functional programming languages
    - logical programming languages
  + imperative languages (definition)
    - procedureal and object-oriented languages
- compilation and interpretation
  + definition, what is the main difference between compilation and 
    interpretation?
  + compilation and execution on virtual machines
  + compilation: static linking and dynamic linking
  + preprocessing: what is its relation with compilation?
  + IDE definition
- Compiler phases and what each phase does

Chapter 2: Programming language syntax

- lexical analysis
  + tokens and regular expressions
    - formal definitions and how to write regular expressions for 
      different types of tokens
  + regular expressions and NFA
    - formal definition of NFA
    - algorithm to convert a regular expression to the corresponding NFA.

- syntax analysis
  + formal definition of grammar
  + derivation and the language recognized by a grammar
  + Chomsky hierarchy (grammar classification)
  + context free grammar 
    - definition
    - writing context free grammar for a language
  + leftmost and rightmost derivation
  + parse tree
  + ambiguity grammar
  + Parsing
    - two general approaches
  + Recursive descent parsing
  + LL(1) Predictive parsing
    - Parse structure
    - step by step trace of the LL(1) parsing algorithm
    - construct LL(1) parsing table
      + algorithm for computing First and Follow sets
      + Using First and Follow sets to compute the parsing table
    - Sufficient and necessary conditions for a grammar to be LL(1)
    - Left recursion and left common factor
    - Algorithms to remove left recursion and left common factor

Chapter 3: Names, Scopes, and Bindings

- Names and issues related to names
  + Name and binding
  + potential binding time
  + effective of binding time
  + objective lifetime and binding lifetime
  + deactivation/reactivation of bindings
- Objective storage management schemes
  + the memory layout of a process/program
  + static allocation
    - Example of objects with static allocation
    - Can static allocation be used for local variabls?
  + subroutine frame/activation record format
  + stack allocation
    - how is the storage for running subroutines managed?
  + Heap allocation
    - algorithms
    - internal and external fragmentations
    - block selection: first fit/best fit
    - garbabe collection, what does it do?
- Scope:
  + definition
  + dynamic scoping and static scoping
  + static scope implementation
    - static chains for nonlocal variables
  + dynamic scope implementation
    - binding stack
  + module and module scopes

Chapter 4: Semantic analysis

- static semantics and dynamic semantics
- attribute grammar
  + definition
  + writing attribute grammar
    - adding semantic rules on a given grammar to perform some function
    - writing an attribute grammar to enhance the underlying context 
      free grammar.
- building decorated parse tree (parse tree annotated with attributes)
- synthesized and inherited attributes
- S-attributed and L-attributed grammars