Learning how programming languages work

Question

I\'ve been programming for years (mainly Python), but I don\'t understand what happens behind the scenes when I compile or execute my code.

In the vein of a question I a

Answer 1

compilers, interpreters and virtual machines are just examples of implementation details. What you might look for is programming languages theory, generative grammar, language translators, and you need possibly some computer architecture to relate theory with implementations.

Personally, I learned from Sebesta's book. It gives a very wide introduction to the subject without going into minute details. It also, has a good chapter on the history of programming languages (~20 languages ~3 papers per language). It has nice explanation about grammars and theory of languages in general. Also, It gives a good introduction into Scheme, Prolog, and programming paradigms (Logic, Functional, Imperative^, Object oriented).

^ It concentrate a lot more on the imperative paradigm than the first two.