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Practical Foundations for Programming Languages

Practical Foundations for Programming Languages

Details | Description | Customer Reviews
By: Professor Robert Harper (Author)  (Hardcover - 2012)
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» Hardcover: (487 pages)
» Publisher Cambridge University Press (December 17, 2012)
» ISBN: 1107029570
» Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
» Amazon.com Sales Rank: #451,844 in Books
» Average Customer Review
     
 
 
Book Description
Types are the central organizing principle of the theory of programming languages. In this innovative book, Professor Robert Harper offers a fresh perspective on the fundamentals of these languages through the use of type theory. Whereas most textbooks on the subject emphasize taxonomy, Harper instead emphasizes genetics, examining the building blocks from which all programming languages are constructed. Language features are manifestations of type structure. The syntax of a language is governed by the constructs that define its types, and its semantics is determined by the interactions among those constructs. The soundness of a language design - the absence of ill-defined programs - follows naturally. Professor Harper's presentation is simultaneously rigorous and intuitive, relying on only elementary mathematics. The framework he outlines scales easily to a rich variety of language concepts and is directly applicable to their implementation. The result is a lucid introduction to programming theory that is both accessible and practical.



Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
7 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:    (0)
3 star:
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive coverage of the semantics of a variety of language features, April 15, 2013
This review is from: Practical Foundations for Programming Languages (Hardcover)
Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)
This book provides an in-depth look at the formal semantics of a wide variety of language features. Previously scattered across many other books and papers, Prof. Harper provides accessible introductions to each of these features. Readers new to the area or not as familiar with PL theory will benefit from the work he has clearly done to separate the discussion of each feature to only the necessary prerequisites.

The one thing I would have also liked to see in this book was a set of self-study problems. He has been working with and teaching this material for many years, and example problems that capture the common mistakes he has seen from students and other researchers would have helped me as I studied this book on my own.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A formalization of the theory of programming languages, February 4, 2013
By 
Michael J. Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   
This review is from: Practical Foundations for Programming Languages (Hardcover)
Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)
What I thought I was ordering through the Vine program was a text on the foundational mathematics for programming; what I got instead was a major attempt at a complete formalization of programming languages. Using type theory, Harper builds up a complete taxonomy of all aspects of programming language construction. This would be an excellent text for a graduate course in the theory of programming languages and compiler construction.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars this book would be a good guide for someone doing research into what features to put in a programming language, May 23, 2013
By 
Patrick Regan "Patrick Regan" (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Practical Foundations for Programming Languages (Hardcover)
Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?)
Practical Foundations for Programming languages manages to cover much of the syntax a programming language designer might want to include in a programming language by creating an abstract way of looking at languages and then applying these concepts to particular aspects of programming language design. First he presents syntactic objects (abstract syntax trees) then defines a form of induction over these (structural induction). Next he defines statics, which the parsing and type checking of code in a particular programming language and dynamics which is how a program is to be executed. Finally, he applies these abstract concepts to a variety of different aspects of language design, everything from exceptions to sub-typing to classes and methods. If you are interested in creating a small language and have already fixed on the type of language you would like, this is probably not the book for you. Also, if you are looking for a nuts and bolts approach to presenting language design, this... Read more
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