I used this book teaching a course in programming languages structures at a small, liberal arts college in the northwestern USA (located not far from the publisher). I have generally been quite pleased with the text and plan to use it again.

PROS:

- Just the right level of detail. There is enough here to let students do a few things in each of the three major languages covered, without overburdening them.

- Very clearly written, in a friendly style. Alternating between "practical" and "theoretical" chapters was a good decision. As a minor point, there are surprisingly few typographical errors.

- Relatively inexpensive, as these things go.

CONS:

- Could use more exercises, but that's true of almost all textbooks.

- Some students argue that the title is a misnomer. Two of the languages covered in depth (ML and Prolog) are nearly 40 years old and not widely used or well supported. Perhaps Scheme would be a... Read more

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If by "modern" you mean languages that were invented in 1972, 1973, and 1991 then, by all means, this book contains modern programming languages. Back in the real world, however, ML and Prolog haven't been used for years; the list of languages they influenced in Wikipedia is almost as long as section dedicated to the languages themselves. If the theory behind these particular languages wanted to be taught, one of those "modern" equivalents could have been used instead with the bonus of actually being useful in today's world.

The book is is poorly written: the last chapter discusses the history of programming languages, and makes analogies to The Bible. In one section the author says language a beget language b beget language c, etc. He also traces the whole history of programming back to ancient Babylon; a vast stretch for anyone. These two things just doesn't make sense in the context of a programming textbook.

My third complaint is poor editing (I don't want to... Read more