Most people will not need or want to design or implement their own language.
However, it is not as hard as the author suggests. First, there are excellent tutorials, textbooks (Wirth, Dragon book) and tools available (lex, yacc, LLVM, CUP, Jflex, Lemon, ...).
You should give it a try just for the fun of learning.
You will not often _need_ to do it, as most capabilities can perhaps be realized as libraries (including network and mobile functionality mentioned by the author).
Once you design something useful, other people will likely chime in and advertise for your, write documentation etc.
Most complex software system incorporate compiler techniques or Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), for parsing configuration files or as a basis for building higher-level functionality (AutoLISP -> AutoCAD, ELISP -> Emacs).
He shouts out to Nanopass, a way of writing highly compositional compilers developed in the Scheme world and much ported elsewhere. This kind of approach much reduces the pain of designing and maintaining compilers and can lead to very efficient compilers: it is the technology used in Chez Scheme. It's not got much take-up outside of the Scheme-aware world, despite the existence of many ports of the essential idea to other languages; I note that interesting Nanopass links keep getting submitted to HN without getting commented on: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=nanopass
However, it is not as hard as the author suggests. First, there are excellent tutorials, textbooks (Wirth, Dragon book) and tools available (lex, yacc, LLVM, CUP, Jflex, Lemon, ...).
You should give it a try just for the fun of learning.
You will not often _need_ to do it, as most capabilities can perhaps be realized as libraries (including network and mobile functionality mentioned by the author).
Once you design something useful, other people will likely chime in and advertise for your, write documentation etc.
Most complex software system incorporate compiler techniques or Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), for parsing configuration files or as a basis for building higher-level functionality (AutoLISP -> AutoCAD, ELISP -> Emacs).