bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) (08/14/90)
Although the following book talks only a little about
Eiffel, it may be of interest to readers of this newsgroup.
Title: Introduction to the Theory of Programming Languages
Publisher: Prentice-Hall International
Pages: xvi+448
Author: Bertrand Meyer
ISBN: 0-13-498510-9
0-13-498502-8 (paperback, outside US only).
Published: July 1990
Contents:
Chapter 1 Basic concepts
2 Mathematical background
3 Syntax
4 Semantics: the main approaches
5 Lambda calculus
6 Denotational semantics: fundamentals
7 Denotational semantics: language features
8 The mathematics of recursion
9 Axiomatic semantics
10 The consistency of semantic definitions
Exercises after most chapters. Bibliography (112 entries). Index.
From the back cover blurb:
Understanding programming and programming languages requires
mastering the underlying theoretical models. This book explores
the main methods for describing programming language syntax and
semantics, with particular emphasis on abstract syntax,
axiomatic semantics and denotational semantics. It demonstrates
the complementarity between axiomatic and denotational methods.
All mathematical concepts are explained in the text; the
discussion constantly stresses applications to practical
programming problems.