Those aren't "books in a similar vein", those are the things that this book is (as far as I can tell) aimed to disrupt.
It's like this thing is selling an ATM, and the parent comment is asking "well, I live in Nicaragua, is there an ATM there?" and your answer is "there is an ATM in Nicaragua, it is called a bank."
The Dragon Book is the reason more people don't write compilers. It's old and thorough and formal and really feels like you were handed an "Installing Your Model HJ-3660PF Nuclear Hydraulic Reactor" manual, more than an approachable guide. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you're forced through it for a class--you'll learn more, and what you learn will have a more stable foundation--but it's a shame for people who are just curious, and would learn something from a friendlier presentation where the more formal approach would lose them.
Writing a compiler is pretty fundamental to being able to form an understanding of platform semantics as separate from language syntax. It's something everyone can do--but it's treated so formally that it feels like one of those weird advanced-level things only to be attempted after you've learned everything else, like creating your own magic spells in D&D. If it felt more like some "Create Potion"-level magic, maybe more people would have tried it, and figured out that there's really no magic going on at all. :)
I actually skipped the course, but grabbed my used copy from the old Powell's Tech before it closed, as well as the O'Reilly Flex and Bison book. It felt like I had the nuclear reactor manual! I also got really into writing interpreters, mainly in Ruby, after reading probably too many ICFP papers on the subject (and even shipped one to solve an ad targeting problem.)
I always try to dive headlong into literature for concepts like this, knowing I won't understand everything right away. Implementing the concepts with my tools of choice has always been a great way to prove my understanding, and push myself.
It's like this thing is selling an ATM, and the parent comment is asking "well, I live in Nicaragua, is there an ATM there?" and your answer is "there is an ATM in Nicaragua, it is called a bank."
The Dragon Book is the reason more people don't write compilers. It's old and thorough and formal and really feels like you were handed an "Installing Your Model HJ-3660PF Nuclear Hydraulic Reactor" manual, more than an approachable guide. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you're forced through it for a class--you'll learn more, and what you learn will have a more stable foundation--but it's a shame for people who are just curious, and would learn something from a friendlier presentation where the more formal approach would lose them.
Writing a compiler is pretty fundamental to being able to form an understanding of platform semantics as separate from language syntax. It's something everyone can do--but it's treated so formally that it feels like one of those weird advanced-level things only to be attempted after you've learned everything else, like creating your own magic spells in D&D. If it felt more like some "Create Potion"-level magic, maybe more people would have tried it, and figured out that there's really no magic going on at all. :)