This is a well-written, crisp account of semantics-directed compiler generation. The article surveys current research in generating compilers from denotational definitions of programming language semantics. Two semantics-directed compiler generators are described: Mosses’s SIS and Paulson’s own system PSP.
The article also gives a brief presentation of denotational semantics which can be recommended as a concise introduction to the technique. A denotational definition of a language can be viewed as a functional implementation of a compiler or interpreter. Code generation from denotational semantics is closely related to code generation for functional languages.