Nothing has killed more people&#x27;s love for compilers than parsing theory.<p>Note to all: if you&#x27;re interested in compilers but don&#x27;t immediately love parsing, avoid it like the plague. Similarly, if you thought you might like compilers but got turned off by parsing, possibly while trying to read the Dragon Book, trust me that there&#x27;s lot of interesting stuff there.<p>Personally, I love optimization and static analysis. Parsing not required!<p>This tangent was brought to you by my pet peeve.