I agree that it doesn't dive deep into a lot. It also makes notes of things you don't need to know while you're working through the book. That said, if you just want a basic grasp of what is happening to your code when you run it, this is a good place for that. I don't plan on writing a compiler outside of this book, and I don't think this book directly serves doing that. What it does serve is my curiosity in a compact way.

I'm likely intending to do further research for the unknowns I encounter in the book. I've looked at some books for language design that get heavy into math that I'm no longer familiar with and it's discouraging, so this might be the sweet spot for me, thanks for the response.