Theories of Programming Languages (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Actually, abstractness is lost whenever one defines phrases to be any particular family of sets - of character strings or anything else..." (more)
Key Phrases: direct denotational semantics, extrinsic semantics, letrec definitions, Bibliographic Notes, Hint Use, Product Elimination (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I found the whole book a distinct pleasure to read and certainly recommend this text for consideration by instructors." Mathematical Reviews

"clearly structured...the presentation is clear, and the typesetting often helps the reader to understand the structure of the formulas. Each chapter contains valuable exercises and profound bibliographic notes that can serve as a starting point for further reading. I shall use this excellent textbook in my lectures." Computing Reviews

"...an important book...It is thorough and well organized, and the explanations are very clear. I found the technical content to be in almost every respect flawless. Although written to be a student text, I believe that most researchers (and many practitioners) in programming lanauges (and related fields) would find it worth reading." Journal of Functional Programming

Product Description

This textbook is a broad but rigorous survey of the theoretical basis for the design, definition, and implementation of programming languages, and of systems for specifying and proving program behavior. It encompasses imperative and functional programming, as well as the ways of integrating these aspects into more general languages. Basic concepts and their properties are described with mathematical rigor, but the mathematical development is balanced by numerous examples of applications, particularly of program specification and proof, concurrent programming, functional programming (including the use of continuations and lazy evaluation), and type systems (including subtyping, polymorphism, and modularization). Assuming only knowledge of elementary programming, this text is perfect for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses in programming language theory, and will also appeal to researchers and professionals in designing or implementing computer languages.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (October 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521594146
• ISBN-13: 978-0521594141
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,626,977 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short and sweet, November 20, 2000

By	Venkatesh Prasad Ranganath (Manhattan, KS USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The book addresses various features of programming languages from a mathematical viewpoint. It discusses semantics of things from simple imperative language to failure to concurrency issues using channel based and shared memory concepts. It is a good book to get an idea about most of this concepts if you do away with the math involved. If you can swallow the math you will be able to come up with semantics for various systems fairly quickly. I have read the Winskel's book on semantics. I feel this book is a touch away from all the math stuff compared to Winskel's book. It would be better to refer to Winskels book after this book.