Programming Language Pragmatics / Edition 4

by Michael L. Scott

Overview

Programming Language Pragmatics addresses the fundamental principles at work in the most important contemporary languages, highlights the critical relationship between language design and language implementation, and devotes special attention to issues of importance to the expert programmer. Thanks to its rigorous but accessible teaching style, you’ll emerge better prepared to choose the best language for particular projects, to make more effective use of languages you already know, and to learn new languages quickly and completely.

Features

• Addresses the most recent developments in programming language design, spanning more than forty different languages, including Ada 95, C, C++, Fortran 95, Java, Lisp, Scheme, ML, Modula-3, Pascal, and Prolog.
• Places a special emphasis on implementation issues—how the techniques used by compilers and related tools influence language design, and vice versa.
• Covers advanced topics in language design and implemenation, such as iterators, coroutines, templates (generics), separate compilation, I/O, type inference, and exception handling.
• Reviews language-related topics in assembly-level architecture critical for understanding what a compiler does to a program.
• Offers in-depth coverage of object-oriented programming, including multiple inheritance and dynamic method binding.
• Devotes a special section to static and dynamic linking.
• Includes a comprehensive chapter on concurrency, with detailed coverage of both shared-memory and message-passing languages and libraries.
• Provides an accessible introduction to the formal foundations of compilation (automata theory), functional programming (lambda calculus), and logic programming (predicate calculus).

About the Author
Michael L. Scott is a professor in the University of Rochester's Department of Computer Science, which he chaired from 1996 to 1999. He is the designer of the Lynx distributed programming language and a co-designer of the Charlotte and Psyche parallel operating systems, the Bridge parallel file system, the Cashmere distributed shared memory system, and the MCS mutual exclusion lock. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900124104098
Publication date:	12/25/2015
Pages:	992
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Michael L. Scott is a professor and past Chair of the Computer Science Department at the University of Rochester. He is best known for work on synchronization and concurrent data structures: algorithms from his group appear in a wide variety of commercial and open-source systems. A Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE, he shared the 2006 Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing. In 2001 he received the University's Robert and Pamela Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Teaching.

Table of Contents

Preface ..... xiii
Chapter 1: Introduction ..... 1
Chapter 2Programming Language Syntax ..... 27
Chapter 3: Names, Scopes, and Bindings ..... 93
Chapter 4: Semantic Analysis ..... 145
Chapter 5: Assembly-Level Computer Architecture ..... 181
Chapter 6: Control Flow ..... 223
Chapter 7: Data Types ..... 287
Chapter 8: Subroutines and Control Abstraction ..... 383
Chapter 9: Data Abstraction and Object Orientation ..... 441
Chapter 10: Functional and Logic Languages ..... 495
Chapter 11: The Back End of the Compiler ..... 557
Chapter 12: Concurrency ..... 615
Appenidix: Programming Languages Mentioned ..... 675
Bibliography ..... 683
Index ..... 707

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The most comprehensive programming language textbook available today, featuring an integrated treatment of language design and language implementation. Users will find this a solid resource to help them understand the most important issues driving modern software development

Editorial Reviews

This textbook for a programming languages course focuses on concepts that underlie all of the languages normally encountered, illustrating those concepts with examples from various languages. Language design and implementation are explored together, with an emphasis on the ways in which they interact. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"This book is a key resource for any computer science student and is certainly faithful to its title - Programming Language Pragmatics…. The updated third edition of this popular book delivers the key concepts of programming languages and their implementation in a concise and intuitive way, illustrated with clear explanations and examples…. In addition to the coverage of traditional language topics, Scott’s book delves into the sometimes obscure, but essential, details of programming artifacts. The descriptions of language theory, along with concrete implementations of how to realise them, are invariably presented in a language-agnostic fashion. And therein lies the strength of this book: whilst the main examples have been updated (with C and Intel x86 replacing Pascal and MIPS), it provides an organisational framework for learning new languages, irrespective of the paradigm…. Programming Language Pragmatics provides a more accessible introduction to many of the key topics than the classic Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools by Aho et al. (a.k.a. the ‘Dragon Book’) and provides a deep appreciation of the design and implementation issues of modern languages…. The material is aimed at an undergraduate computer science level, but is also suitable for self-study. Topics are often independent of previously presented material, making it easier to pick and choose areas for study. This is also supported by additional in-depth material and advanced discussion topics on the companion CD…. In summary, this new edition provides both students and professionals alike a solid understanding of the most important issues driving software development today - an essential purchase for any serious programmer or computer scientist!"—BCS.com

From the Publisher