This book was written for use in the introductory compiler course at DIKU, the department of computer science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
At DIKU, the compiler course is taught right after the introductory programming course, which is earlier than in most other universities. Hence, existing textbooks tended either to be too advanced for the level of the course or be too simplistic in their approach, for example only describing a single very simple
compiler without bothering too much with the general picture.