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Foundations for Programming Languages (Foundations of Computing) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

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"Programming languages embody the pragmatics of designing software systems, and also the mathematical concepts which underlie them. Anyone who wants to know how, for example, object-oriented programming rests upon a firm foundation in logic should read this book. It guides one surefootedly through the rich variety of basic programming concepts developed over the past forty years."
—Robin Milner, Professor of Computer Science, The Computer Laboratory, Cambridge University

"Programming languages need not be designed in an intellectual vacuum; John Mitchell's book provides an extensive analysis of the fundamental notions underlying programming constructs. A basic grasp of this material is essential for the understanding, comparative analysis, and design of programming languages."
—Luca Cardelli, Digital Equipment Corporation

Product Description

"Programming languages embody the pragmatics of designing software systems, and also the mathematical concepts which underlie them. Anyone who wants to know how, for example, object-oriented programming rests upon a firm foundation in logic should read this book. It guides one surefootedly through the rich variety of basic programming concepts developed over the past forty years." -- Robin Milner, Professor of Computer Science, The Computer Laboratory, Cambridge University "Programming languages need not be designed in an intellectual vacuum; John Mitchell's book provides an extensive analysis of the fundamental notions underlying programming constructs. A basic grasp of this material is essential for the understanding, comparative analysis, and design of programming languages." -- Luca Cardelli, Digital Equipment Corporation

Written for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, Foundations for Programming Languages uses a series of typed lambda calculi to study the axiomatic, operational, and denotational semantics of sequential programming languages. Later chapters are devoted to progressively more sophisticated type systems.

Compared to other texts on the subject, Foundations for Programming Languages is distinguished primarily by its inclusion of material on universal algebra and algebraic data types, imperative languages and Floyd-Hoare logic, and advanced chapters on polymorphism and modules, subtyping and object-oriented concepts, and type inference. The book is mathematically oriented but includes discussion, motivation, and examples that make the material accessible to students specializing in software systems, theoretical computer science, or mathematical logic.

Foundations for Programming Languages is suitable as a reference for professionals concerned with programming languages, software validation or verification, and programming, including those working with software modules or object-oriented programming.

Foundations of Computing series

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Product Details

Hardcover: 845 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press (September 1, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262133210
ISBN-13: 978-0262133210
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #993,499 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference for most PL semantics topics, August 14, 2003

By	John Lasseter "johnfl70" (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews

This has been my standard desk reference for PL semantics since I started the PhD process five years ago, and I've nearly worn it out.

Be advised that this is definitely not a first book, and that most of the covered topics have simpler introductory treatments elsewhere. This book is mainly a pure semantics work, along the lines of Winskel, Gunter, Tennent, Slonneger, etc. It has no discussion of implementation techniques for any of the covered topics. For that, you're better off with Mitchell's other book, or Sethi or Friedman/Wand/Haynes. Topics covered are: axiomatic, structural operational, and denotational semantics, PCF (including the full abstraction problem), universal algebra, typed lambda calculi and their models (including imperative programs), the category-theoretic approach to domain theory, logical relations, and many chapters on type systems. Several of these topics are covered more extensively elsewhere (domains by Amadio & Curien, types by Pierce), but the coverage of each topic is fairly thorough here and scarily rigorous. There are many nice excercises at the end of every section.

There are some missing topics that I wish had been included: coinduction and material on concurrency, which are not even mentioned. You'll need to get Milner's or Sangiorgi's books for this (or deBakker + de Vink's _Control Flow Semantics_). As it is, though, the book is already nearly 850 pages long.

Overall, it's a very good textbook for a grad-level semantics course, and an excellent general reference.

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5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good book for first year graduate student, May 23, 2000

By	Hanbiao Wang (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This is a excellent book for a first year graduate student who studies modeling of information and computing. It's different from other similar books by view programming languages from lamda calculus.

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2 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Joni Mitchell would be more in learning PL :), January 3, 2002

By A Customer

The book has a good contents, in the headlines, it seems that it is the book for the graduate CS student, but it definitely is not.

The book does not lack disturbingly much from mathematical completeness, however the mathematics that it fits onto the subject is not for understanding, I think the writer himself have not understood what he has typed, either, in particular I think that the universal algebraic setting that he used in Chapter 3 has better presentations; better in rigor and understandability in libraries, e.g. by Burris and Sankappavar.
I'm not a PL expert, but if it is PL and you're working in it, please do move onto a better subject, such as astrology; at least you'll not be developing self-consistent but most of the time useless (not only in practical life) systems of definitions, propositions, theorems and corollaries.

I look forward to seeing the "Springer version" of this book; maybe more expensive, rigorous, short but complete and most important of all understandable.

(signed)Turan Yuksel

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