Programming Language Concepts uses a functional programming language (F sharp) as the metalanguage in which to present all concepts and examples, and thus has an operational flavour, enabling practical experiments and exercises. It includes basic concepts such as abstract syntax, interpretation, stack machines, compilation, type checking, and garbage collections technique, as well as more advanced topics such as polymorphic types, type inference using the union-find algorithm and levels, co- and contravariance, continuations, and on-the-fly peephole optimization in backwards code generation.
Covering practical construction of lexers and parsers, but not regular expressions, automata and grammars, which are well covered elsewhere, the book throws light on the design and technolog of Java and C sharp to strengthen students' understanding of these widely used languages.

Autorentext
Peter Sestoft is Professor of Software Development at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Klappentext

Programming Language Conceptsuses a functional programming language (F#) as the metalanguage in which to present all concepts and examples, and thus has an operational flavour, enabling practical experiments and exercises. It includes basic concepts such as abstract syntax, interpretation, stack machines, compilation, type checking, and garbage collections technique, as well as more advanced topics such as polymorphic types, type inference using the union-find algorithm and levels, co- and contravariance, continuations, and on-the-fly peephole optimization in backwards code generation. Covering practical construction of lexers and parsers, butnotregular expressions, automata and grammars, which are well covered elsewhere, the book throws light on the design and technolog of Java and C# to strengthen students' understanding of these widely used languages.

Zusammenfassung
The full source code for the examples provided in this book aims to encourage innovation and experimentation by a readership that will gain much from the first publication of its kind based on F#. It also covers design and other aspects of Java and C#.

Inhalt

Introduction.-Interpreters and Compilers.-From Concrete Syntax to Abstract Syntax.- A First-Order Functional Language.- Higher-Order Functions.- Polymorphic Types.- Imperative Languages,- Compiling Micro-C.- Real-World Abstract Machines.- Garbage Collection.- Continuations.- A Locally Optimizing Compilier.- Reflection.- Runtime Code Generation.- F# Crash Course.- References.- Index.