This is the home page for the Third Edition of the book Programming
Language Concepts by Carlo
Ghezzi and Mehdi
Jazayeri, published by John Wiley & Sons. The book is now in its
second printing. The first printing had some printing problems (poor margins)
which have been corrected in the second printing. This site is intended
to provide supporting material for instructors and students.
As the preface of the book states,
"Programming languages are at the heart of computer science. They are
the tools we use to communicate with computers and also with people. The
challenge of designing language features that support clear expression,
the puzzle of fitting together different features to make a useful language,
and the challenge of appropriately using those features for the clear expression
of algorithms make up part of the excitement of the study of programming
languages.
This is the third edition of Programming Language Concepts. We started
writing the first edition in 1980 when it appeared to us that the field
of programming languages was becoming stable. We were way wrong then! To
this day, the field continues to be dynamic and exciting. New concepts
and languages continue to arrive to excite large communities of computer
scientists, theorists, experimentalists, and practitioners alike. Indeed,
programming languages represent one of the few areas of computer science
where practitioners and theorists find common ground. Emerging technologies
and new application requirements require continuous evolution and innovation
in the field and are sure to keep the flow of ideas and concepts going
for a long time.
This book studies fundamental concepts that underlie the features of
programming languages. ... "
The book is meant to be used as a textbook and here are some resources to assist the instructors.
Sample syllabus is a starting point for a course syllabus and contains hints on how much time to devote to each chapter.