Programming Languages: Concepts and Implementation

Preface

I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.

— Confucius

What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing . . . .

— Aristotle, Ethics

Learning should be an adventure, a quest, a romance.

— Gretchen E. Smalley

THIS text is about programming language concepts. The goal is not to learn the nuances of particular languages, but rather to explore and establish a deeper understanding of the general concepts or principles of programming languages, with a particular emphasis on programming. Such an understanding prepares us to evaluate how a variety of languages address these concepts and to discern the appropriate languages for a given task. It also arms us with a larger toolkit of programming techniques from which ...