[tejaswidp]

I read the book a while ago, It was quite an eye opener. The one thing I haven't been able to go through was the last chapter, building a "metacircular evaluator. I saved it for a time when I understood compilers/interpreters better.

Diving into codebases, like the octave and supercollider interpreters recently. might be quite interesting to re-read it.

[inimino]

My experience of the last chapter is: it's not as satisfying or as easy as the previous chapters where the solutions to exercises are self-contained. It's also less suited to doing outside of school, if you only have nights and weekends and must re-establish the context every time you sit down again with the book. However, it is still worthwhile, and definitely doesn't require any previous compiler/interpreter exposure (in fact, it might be an advantage to come in fresh, as a lot of what you do in chapter 5 is really easier than you might think if you have exposure to advanced compiler techniques).