New York Spring 2001 Syllabus and Plan of Action Introduction Do not underestimate the difficulty of this course and do not underestimate the amount of time you will need to put into it to be successful.
Most people are successful here, but also find it very stressfull.
Generally, those who are not successful either give up and decide not to do the work or try to cut corners and lapse into various forms of dishonest work. There are a number of goals of this course that go beyond learning how a compiler works and is built. It is a good test of your teamwork skills and your organizational ability. If you are not already a professional software developer this may be the largest program you have ever been asked to work on, so it introduces you to work on programs that are larger than you can conveniently understand all at once. Therefore the structure is important.