I'm reading the red dragon book ([ame=http://www.amazon.com/Compilers-Principles-Techniques-Alfred-Aho/dp/0201100886/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1328414224&sr=8-2]Amazon.com: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (9780201100884): Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman: Books[/ame]) which relates to this site in a peculiar way....
Way back when, Jean McGuire wrote a program called TableMaster, which was an automatic table roller (similar to Tablesmith today) and I'd been meaning to write a parser for Linux. I got a decent parser for the demo, but never managed to handle the full language. So I'm reading the dragon book to get enough of a grounding to write the parser and bring it into the modern era....