Product Description
Aims to exemplify good software engineering principles at the same time as explaining the specific techniques needed to build compilers and interpreters.Examples included. DLC: Java (Computer program language) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The best intro to compilers, period!
Very well organized, all source code for the compiler + Interpreter/Virtual Machine + Disassembler is available online.Good writing, good exercises (including answers to some of them), good selection of material to cover.

If you want to have a good understanding of how copilers/interpreters work, and want good working source code for a demostration and to play with, then you must have this book.

The fact that the implementation is in Java is another plus.Petty differences aside, Java is the most accessible language (in terms of reaching a wide audience), and for those who want to quibble over the authors' coding style: "Grow up!"

For those of you trying to decide whether or not to get this book, go on, download the source, take at look at the code, run it, and if you wanna know how/why it all works, then get the book and read it.You will be glad you did.

No longer relevant thanks to Eclipse framework
Now that Eclipse has an open source (LGPL) framework for building compilers, processors, refactoring tools, code generators, and interpreters, this book is hardly relevant.Eclipse's JDT is well documented, and functionality existing for Java can be ported to other languages (and some is already abstracted to the underlying Eclipse platform).Eclipse has an AST (Abstract Syntax Tree), DOM, and all the other tools this book hacks together, except Eclipse is a huge widely supported open source project.

Simply the best Learing-by-Coding compiler book
This is really the greatest 'Compiler for Dummies' book as of today. I own and studied all books (total arround 80) about compiler constructions you can buy in the world today plus a lot of out of print titles, so I know what you can buy on the market...

If you're looking for a learning-by-coding compiler book don't look futher. This is a great introbook for a Bachelor of Science of a Professional Bachelor student! If you have the money to buy only one compiler book buy this one. If you have the money to buy 2 books and you also know a bit C++, buy this one and 'Writting compilers and Interpreters' from Ronald Mak which also offers a pratical approach which is also nice for newbies but not that nice as this book.

If you have finished this book and want to get more theoretical insight or you're a Computer Science M.Sc student(like me), read 'Programming Language Pragmatics' from Mr. Scott, which don't present the material on a dry manner. This book covers all aspects of compilation and language design in greater detail! Be sure you have read (or master) an intro text like 'programming language processors in java' before starting books like 'programming language pragmatics'.

If you're a M.Sc. student and you're looking for a learning-by-coding book i recommend the books of Andrew Appel (Modern Compiler Implementation in Java) which covers advanced topics (optimization, register selection,etc). But beware: if you're new to compiler design forget Andrew Appels book, and buy this one because Appels would be a bit too difficult for you.

Back tot the 'Programming language processors in Java' book.

This is what I like and what not:

PROS:

* It gives some nice written theoretical introduction of the whole compilation process (e.g. what's LL and LR-parsing, how is runtime organization organized (stack, parameter passing, stackframes etc). It doesn't dive too deep, but you will be familiar with the topics. E.g. it explains how LL and LR parsing works (with some nice examples how to parse LL/LR simple English sentences), but it doesn't tell you what the advantages/disadvantages of both methods are. This is beyond the scope of this book. For these topics read later something else (e.g. 'programming language pragmiatcs')

* Not all Java code is printed to fill 1000 pages. Every codesnippet is well commented, all repeatative code is left out: you can download all the Java code. So this book is not one big listing.

* It gives you insight how to build a really nice Virtual Machine. The author is talking about an interpreter, but the compiler generatesmodern intermediate code (STORE,LOAD,CALL,JMP) and the VM execute this in a big WHILE-loop.

* Somelearning-by-coding compiler books (e.g. 'Building your own compiler with C++' by Jim Holmes (not recommended)) explain only a silly subset of pascal (e.g. only assignment and writeline), but this book teach you 'mini Triangle-language' which also offers arrays, functions/procedures, records (structs), and parameter passing by reference/value. It also explains you those more difficult topics like parameter by reference passing is handled by the codegenerator.

* It has a nice chapter about runtime organization. This is a nice chapter for people which are new to e.g. processorarchitecture. This chapter explains you how local variables are stores (stack), how parameter passing to functions is working and how return values are passed back. Because the Interpreter (VM) which is introduced in the book, has a modern stack machine VM (STORE,LOAD,JUMP) this is an excelent way to study those VMs and code generating for a stack machine.

CONS:

* I agree to the customer review of Mr. Yegge of July 12, 2004 that the Java Code is not always supernice. E.g. there is often java.lang.Object parameter passing which is later dangerous narrative casted. I do NOT agree with Mr. Yegge about his remarks on the Visitor pattern. The author explains why he is using the visitor pattern: to reduce coupling between the CodeGenerator or TypeChecker and the AST. On this point I like the design of the author. The idea of using the visitor pattern is nice, but it is somewhat bad implemented with those narrative casts.

Conclusion: I STRONGLY recommend this book for people who are new to compiler design.

Rushed to publication too quickly
It's a lot of work creating a textbook like this, and the authors did a great job along certain dimensions.The book is well-organized and much more accessible than many (in)famous compilers books.The copy editing is high-quality:there aren't many mistakes in the book.The book itself is beautifully bound and printed, making it a pleasure to read.There's lots of sample code.On the whole, it's not a bad effort.

There -are- some real problems with it, though.The most obvious and central problem is that it's not a book by (or for) Java programmers.It feels very much as if the book was hastily rewritten from "Language Processors in Pascal" to "Language Processors in Java" after Java exploded in popularity, a year or two before the book was published.The mini-Triangle language is clearly a Pascal derivative, and many of the "pseudo-code" examples are really Pascal.Pascal may be a teaching language, but it looks completely alien to Java developers.

My biggest concern, and it's what prompted me to write this review, is that the Java code is truly awful.Yes, it uses the Visitor pattern (as one reviewer pointed out) to traverse the AST during semantic analysis, which is a reasonable strategy.But the code is just plain bad, and you don't want students learning bad habits.The code is utterly non-polymorphic; it's filled with long cascaded if-statements that check whether an AST node is an instanceof this or an instanceof that.They pass and return parameters of type Object, and callers perform dangerous narrowing typecasts.They freely pass and return null values that have special semantics (i.e. "if this parameter is null, then it means we have this kind of situation; otherwise it's the other kind").Types are represented as ints (no attempt to create typesafe enums), instance members are made public and accessed directly rather than through methods, and they use unconventional (and unexplained) 1-character variable names.I'm telling you:it's a complete disaster, and students will come away from the course writing the worst Java code you could imagine.

Another problem:the book is written in a stilted and awkwardly formal tone - a throwback to textbooks in the 70s and 80s.The art of writing textbooks has advanced to the point where, gosh, you're supposed to be able to READ them.They're written FOR real people, BY real people.But this book reads like an actuarial report.It never says "you" and never says "we" - it's written entirely in stilted 3rd-person legalese.Not good.

Oh, one more gripe:the authors decided mysteriously that they don't like the standard terminology that's been around for 3 decades, so they changed "semantic analysis" to "contextual analysis" and so on, and then acted as if the standard terminology is non-standard.They could have at least said up front that they preferred using their own terminology, but that it was nonstandard; instead they're trying to rewrite history.It's inexcusable, and will confuse students who head to other books after reading this one.

Compilers are hard to write and hard to learn, and this book actually is an improvement in clarity of exposition over most of its predecessors.But it's just begging to be replaced by something better.In the meantime, I'd skip it and go straight to Programming Language Pragmatics.

Easy to read and understand
The author has done a good job by presenting basic
compiler theory and implementing a simple
compiler using the java programming lauguage.

Good illustration of compiler concepts.

One of the better basic compiler books i have read
so far.

Next book should be "Progamming language pragmatics"
followed by "Advanced compiler design and implementation" ... Read more

Product Description
Most current programming language text that provides a balanced mix of explanation and experimentation. Opening chapters present the fundamental principals of programming languages, while optional companion chapters provide implementation-based, hands-on experience that delves even deeper.This edition also includes a greatly expanded treatment of the four major programming paradigms, incorporating a number of the most current languages such as Perl and Python. Special topics presented include event-handling, concurrency, and an all-new chapter on correctness. Overall, this edition provides both broad and deep coverage of language design principles and the major paradigms, allowing users the flexibility of choosing what topics to emphasize. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Programming Languages
What i would have wanted to know is that how cheap could i purchase the book and the quality of the book. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides students with a deep, working understanding of the essential concepts of programming languages. Most of these essentials relate to the semantics, or meaning, of program elements, and the text uses interpreters (short programs that directly analyze an abstract representation of the program text) to express the semantics of many essential language elements in a way that is both clear and executable. The approach is both analytical and hands-on. The book provides views of programming languages using widely varying levels of abstraction, maintaining a clear connection between the high-level and low-level views. Exercises are a vital part of the text and are scattered throughout; the text explains the key concepts, and the exercises explore alternative designs and other issues. The complete Scheme code for all the interpreters and analyzers in the book can be found online through The MIT Press Web site.

For this new edition, each chapter has been revised and many new exercises have been added. Significant additions have been made to the text, including completely new chapters on modules and continuation-passing style. Essentials of Programming Languages can be used for both graduate and undergraduate courses, and for continuing education courses for programmers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

I'm going back to the 2nd Edition
For several years I've taught an advanced undergraduate programming language course using the second edition of this book.Now I think I see why it's priced at $60, and the third edition is only $44.The third edition loses the simplicity and elegance of the second, replacing it with unnecessary abstraction and complexity (expressed versus denoted values), and treating the fun, hands-on part (implementation in Scheme) almost as an afterthought.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Very good book
I've taught fundamentals of programming languages, a course for 2nd year undergraduate students, using this book and it's been a success. The reader must know how to program in order to understand the book, I accept that, but the idea of teaching the basis of programming languages by creating one is great. Additionally, the use of Scheme as a language for developing is crucial.
On the other hand, the quality of the book and the paper are good. It has a lot of very decent exercises and the subjects are well-explained. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume reports on innovative, useful evaluation work conducted within U.S. college foreign language programs. An introductory chapter scopes out the territory, reporting key findings from research into the concerns, impetuses, and uses for evaluation that FL educators identify. Seven chapters then highlight examples of evaluations conducted in diverse language programs and institutional contexts. Each case is reported by program-internal educators, who walk readers through critical steps, from identifying evaluation uses, users, and questions, to designing methods, interpreting findings, and taking actions. A concluding chapter reflects on the emerging roles for FL program evaluation and articulates an agenda for integrating evaluation into language education practice. ... Read more

Product Description
Here is an informative introduction to language: its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples.It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreign tongues, and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages—Teutonic, Romance, Greek—helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It presents by common-sense methods the most helpful approach to the mastery of many languages; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way; and it teaches a languages as it is actually used in everyday life.

But this book is more than a guide to foreign languages; it goes deep into the roots of all knowledge as it explores the history of speech. It lights up the dim pathways of prehistory and unfolds the story of the slow growth of human expression from the most primitive signs and sounds to the elaborate variations of the highest cultures. Without language no knowledge would be possible; here we see how language is at once the source and the reservoir of all we know. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Loom of Language is definitely comprehensive
looks like a great book so far; haven't read past 100 pages, but it's very thorough and comprehensive, goes through the history of the world's main languages, concentrating on european tongues, and even has a method in there somewhere on learning them. the more languages you learn, the easier it is to learn other ones. this book will guide you through mastering as many languages as you can afford to learn.

It's OK.
On the one hand, my Latin teacher must have spoiled me with a number of extemporaneous analyses on indo-european Languages.Those spirited additions to the standard lesson really caught my imagination, while this book never has.I thought it would, alas.Maybe I just don't yet understand frederick bodmer.It's nice to see that others really found the text helpful and useful, perhaps it even touches on the mythical and mystical, for them.

On the other hand, my favorite source on the origins of language remains the etymologies in the Red Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary.Despite my present jadedness, I can never forget the utter ecstasy in finding a solid, trustworthy explanation for the origin of almost any word.For me, such trustworthiness was what gave meaning to American civilization....much more than my high-school history classes.

On my first day of my present work, I was tickled pink (nearly Red, if you will) to find a Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary on my desk.This experience of my first day really made me feel at home.I always imagined that one of the executives must have had the same thought on Merriam-Webster and that is why it found its way to my desk.Those first days were truly special.

Still interesting, still relevant
A good reason exists why The Loom of Language, first published in 1944, is still in print. It remains one of the best overviews of Indo-European and Near East languages to date. While a basic grasp of linguistic tools will help, the reader essentially only needs an understanding of English grammatical rules to get through the book. The explicit goal of The Loom of Languages is to introduce readers to a broad range of languages, language timelines, language roots and the tools necessary to understand a wide variety of linguistic patterns so as to learn new languages. The greatest asset of The Loom of Language is that it never strays off track. The authors carefully, consistently marry one chapter to the next. This is no dry linguistic workbook either; the authors take the time to explore the history and culture behind various languages, peppering the work with colorful anthropological anecdotes.

If one fault could be listed with The Loom of Languages it would be that a muddy xenophobia trickles into some of the chapter as witnessed by this comment concerning the lack of Greek and Latin language influence in the Eastern Europe of antiquity: "The comparatively late appearance of loan words in the Slavonic lexicon faithfully reflects this retardation of culture contact with more progressive communities (page 419)."
Modern day readers unaccustomed to the cultural proclivities of earlier linguists and anthropologists may find the repetitive use of words like "Aryan" or "high culture" unsettling. That said, the nitty-gritty of the data (with a few exceptions) in The Loom of Languages remains unadulterated and essentially informative. Recent discoveries by linguists and anthropologists now contradict some of TLOL findings, but not enough to undermine the goals of the book. A highly recommended book for budding linguists or those with a curiosity about the link between language and history.

Contents:
The theme of this book is language, its origins in the past, its growth through history, and its present use for communication between peoples. It is at the same time a history of language, a guide to foreigntongues and a method for learning them. It shows, through basic vocabularies, family resemblances of languages...Teutonic, Romance, Greek...helpful tricks of translation, key combinations of roots and phonetic patterns. It demonstrates that it is as easy to learn several languages at once as it is to learn one; it condenses vocabulary to a minimum of essential words; it simplifies grammar in an entirely new way, and it teaches a language as it is actually used in everyday life rather than in the abstract manner of textbooks.

(...)

Constructed Aux. Lang. of International Communication
This books most significant contribution is that it provides a look into the thought processes behind linguists engagged in constructing auxilliary languages for international communication to solve the problem of translation into so many different languages and dialects.

Essentially Mr. Bodmer states that all of the current proposals for an international language are flawed but "Novial" is the best among them.However, its flaws are that it doesn't take into account the predominance of Greek roots comming into common usage through scientific terminology, not Latin roots that many of the other attempts use.It doesn't respect the widespread knowledge about English even in Asia and neglects the need for a simplified lexicography.He cites "Basic English" as a natural starting point which contains the main 850 words in English used to define all the others.

If a person wanted to get a head start learning the international language of the future.They probably wouldn't be too far off if they studied Greek roots which are easily recognized by native English speakers first such as "haema" for "blood" as in the word hemoglobin.And only the words from the list of the basic 850.Then studied only the Latin roots easily recognized by native English speakers such as "Omni" for "all." Finally, study the simplified spelling and grammar of Novial.

If nothing else, this book will give people a greater understanding of languages in general and perhaps help them speak or write more effectively in any language, even their mother tongue. ... Read more

Product Description
Concepts in Programming Languages elucidates the central concepts used in modern programming languages, such as functions, types, memory management, and control.The book is unique in its comprehensive presentation and comparison of major object-oriented programming languages.Separate chapters examine the history of objects, Simula and Smalltalk, and the prominent languages C++ and Java. The author presents foundational topics, such as lambda calculus and denotational semantics, in an easy-to-read, informal style, focusing on the main insights provided by these theories. Advanced topics include concurrency, concurrent object-oriented programming, program components, and inter-language interoperability.A chapter on logic programming illustrates the importance of specialized programming methods for certain kinds of problems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Excellent explanation of fundamental concepts
I read this book out of interest in programming languages theory. I did not want to read a pure theoretical book but wanted to get an understanding on how important concepts are currently implemented in various different languages. This book does this job quite effectively. It also has a puritan theoretical flavor that I liked. It used ML for explaining important concepts and I think that is a right choice. It also has pointed out many good references at the end of every chapter in case one may want to explore more about a topic.The topics covered here are very relevant to Engineers particularly to understand the possibilities the set of all languages can provide.The same author has a theory book. However, that book is mainly for researchers in programming languages.

Excellent introduction to programming language concepts
I really enjoyed reading Concepts in Programming Languages.

The book covers a little bit of everything. It includes an introduction to mathematical foundations such as computability theory and lambda calculus, but I found it quite readable (at the time when I was reading it, which was early during my undergraduate studies). It also includes a tiny bit on the semantics of programming languages (that is, how to describe the meaning formally), which is another important concept from the mathematical foundations of programming languages.

Then it talks about many programming languages and concepts that come from them and are interesting including LISP (which is a basis for Clojure), ML (a basis for Microsoft's F#) but also Simula and Smalltalk (two fundamental OO languages that inspired all modern OO languages, both dynamic such as Ruby and static such as Java). It also talks about C++ and Java (practical OO languages with quite different approach). There are also a few notes about different approaches to concurrency (quite important nowadays!) and logical programming (an iteresting alternative).

It doesn't go into much details and covers wide range of topics, which I consider as a benefit if you want to read it to get a broad overview of the programming language theory. The book actually motivated my current interest in programming languages :-).

Get it! Read it!
I used this book in CS 242. It was a great class; and this is one of my favorite books ever!

Good introduction to the subject
I can't speak to John Mitchell's skill as a lecturer, but some of the complaints here seem to betray a misunderstanding of the purpose of the book: to serve as an introduction to programming language theory, such as can be found in Mitchell's other book *Foundations for Programming Languages*. Mitchell is taking you *out of* the marketable skills zone and into abstract computer science, and he's being pretty nice about it -- the book contains friendly precises of topics like lambda calculus and denotational semantics, which make up the formal core of programming languages. What you will learn has applications in all popular programming languages, even if it's not spelled out in the text.

ML was a good choice as an example language, because it includes many of the features a programming language might have (being both imperative and functional), and furthermore is a serious research language on account of its well-understood semantics and type system. Focusing on it to explain core concepts was not a mistake. Mitchell knows how to do it the other way, too: explanations of the basic elements of object-orientation are parceled out over several notable OO languages, providing a way to compare and contrast how the major OO concepts can be implemented. (I didn't find the final chapter, Apt's summary of Prolog, as helpful: the declarative paradigm is too far removed from what was developed in the rest of the book.)

On account of its relatively gentle explanations and the importance of its concepts for all aspects of CS, this would be a good book for a relative beginner in CS to pick up (provided they can comprehend more than just code). But if you find it too repellent, you're probably not going to be much happier with more advanced treatments: its character just reflects the nature of the field.

Good Review Book, Bad Intro Book
It's a good review book if you know your material and just need a quick refresh or need the same concept explained differently.However, this book will intimidate you if you're new to computer science.An example would be in Chapter 1, the words "stack memory management and recursive functions or procedures" were thrown at the readers without any explanation. ... Read more

Product Description
Understanding the way in which learners differ from one another is of fundamental concern to those involved in second-language acquisition, either as researchers or teachers. This account is the first to review at book length the important research into differences, considering matters such as aptitude, motivation, learner strategies, personality and interaction between learner characteristics and types of instruction. ... Read more

Product Description
Problem-solving is one of the most challenging aspects students encounter in general chemistry courses leading to frustration and failure.Consequently, many students become less motivated to take additional chemistry courses after the first year.This book deals with calculations in general chemistry and its primary goal is to prevent frustration by providing students with innovative, intuitive, and systematic strategies to problem-solving in chemistry.The material addresses this issue by providing several sample problems with carefully explained step-by-step solutions for each concept.Key concepts, basic theories, and equations are provided and worked examples are selected to reflect possible ways problems could be presented to students. ... Read more

Product Description
Toss another shrimp on the barbie, crack open a tinny or pour yourself a chardy while you traverse Australia's vast expanse of true blue, fair dinkum Aussie lingo - from cosmopolitan communique to surf slang, outback jargon and some of the world's oldest indigenous languages.C'mon avagoyermug!

Features comprehensive section on Australia's impressive array of indigenous languages.

Lonely Planet's English Language & Culture series goes behind the scenes of languages you thought you knew.Get into the culture and humour behind common - and not so common - English expressions and learn about the local languages that inspired them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Crazy good book if you're going to Australia
Great book to understand what the Aussies are and what the heck they are saying, and they love, love, love to spend hours with you drinking beers going through the book laughing at themselves.Great book, I left it in Australia for them to continue the fun!

A marvellous bargain in every sense
This work surprised me enormously and completely exceeded my expectations. For students of varieties of English, or those specifically interested in Australia and things Australian, this is the absolute best than can be found and in a small, portable format. The addenda on Aboriginal languages are marvellous, and my only question is why there was not a reference to Aboriginals in Northern Queensland, while there were sections concerning New South Wales and Victoria, where I would have supposed their cultural presence less visible. Even so, I was absolutely delighted with this item and recommend it to one and all. It is by far the best Lonely Planet language guide I've seen up to now!

Good but not great!!
This is an interesting book for someone who has not been to Australia. Although there are variations between Aussie English and Standard Australian English, visitors will mostly encounter SAE. "Aussie" English is used in informal settings and is useful to know - but it is not as common as this book would suggest.The Australian accentmay be difficult for some visitors and the use of works describing local peculiarities (beer's, local areas, etc) may seem strange at first. The section on Aboriginal languages is extremely good and gives an accurate introduction to this unique field. However, again be aware that the majority of Australians have no knowledge of Aboriginal languages and very few white Australians actually speak an Aboriginal language.The Anangu languages of the central Australian Outback are spoken by people living in communities in areas that require a permit to visit. You will hear these languages in communities that are attached to visitor centers or by Aboriginal guides to these areas. But do not assume that because book devotes half its content to Aboriginal languages that you will hear these in every day speech. Overall a good introduction to Australian "culture" and speech, but too much emphasize for a book of this kind on Aboriginal languages.

This book is garbage
Just to cite a few of many mistakes: Bathers are NOT referrredto as togs in South Australia. Non alcholic drinks are most commonly referred to as cool drinks in South Australia, NOT soft drinks. In Tasmania, all non animal objects are commonly referred to as "him", NOT just trees. Terms such as idiot were NOT invented by Australian politicians! Relatives ARE often referred to as relies.

Speaking "Aussie"
This book is a lot of fun!Our Australian friends really do talk like this. ... Read more

Product Description

This classic book on formal languages, automata theory, and computational complexity has been updated to present theoretical concepts in a concise and straightforward manner with the increase of hands-on, practical applications. This new edition comes with Gradiance, an online assessment tool developed for computer science.

Gradiance is the most advanced online assessment tool developed for the computer science discipline.  With its innovative underlying technology, Gradiance turns basic homework assignments and programming labs into an interactive learning experience for students.  By using a series of “root questions” and hints, it not only tests a student’s capability, but actually simulates a one-on-one teacher-student tutorial that allows for the student to more easily learn the material.  Through the programming labs, instructors are capable of testing, tracking, and honing their students’ skills, both in terms of syntax and semantics, with an unprecedented level of assessment never before offered. 

Customer Reviews (43)

written for peoplec who already know the material?
This entire subject is very difficult. I suppose that i wouldn't know that this book
was bad if i hadn't read better?Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
for instance, uses much more understandable language and symbols.
In most cases books in this area of language and automata theory are difficult,
but most authors realize this and try to make the text
more understandable. I suppose if this were a text for a class
I'd be faced with trying to find a Schaum's outline text to get me through the course?
In other words the text is a failure that seems to be difficult for
even people who are familiar with the material.
My heart goes out to students who have only this text for their class:
an instructor that choses such a text will be no help in his lectures?

Satisfying
Picture is different, they sent me the International edition in stead. I needed the book and it felt like it's taking forever, but it was on time according to the time lines. I am to large degree satisfied, don't expect too much though.

Want an Advanced? Get the First Edition of 1979
My first exposure to Automata Theory backs to 1992, as a senior undergrad textbook for that course, which was mandatory and a prerequisite to the Compilers Course. (No student could take them together). Although I got the highest grade among over 80 students, but I was not getting enough comprehension from the class, as it should be. I admit it was due to the complexity and sophistication of that text, since this was the first course that 100% dedicated to computational theory; taking into account it is BS in Computer/COMPUTATIONAL Science.

In my MS work, the required text was By Sipser, but the instructor was giving material that was from Hopcroft/Ullman 1979 text. It was the definitive resource, period.

I purchased the 2nd Ed, 2000, Hopcroft/Ullman/Mitwani; it was simpler than the 1st Ed. and easy going. My focus, and all Professors and researchers whom I know who work in a related-area, have this exact edition as a reference when needed!

Chapter Contents and Material Exhibits
The chapters are relatively not big in text but are very-rich in contents, that sometimes, if this is your first read/exposure to Automata theory, then perhaps you may need to read each section more than one time. If you're reading the text in deep, and in chapter 4+, you would really have a full enjoyment of how the authors are going with their exploring the ideas, with motivation. This is not my first text that I read by Ullman, Hopecroft, and Aho, especially, their older texts; their writings are just "amazing."

Exercises
Try to solve the exercises but not at once. Perhaps the exercises can be divided into 4 categories
1. Simple ones
2. moderate (average), that mayhap need to scratch your brain
3. difficult (beyond average), but not challenging, they are just doable.
4. challenging --> I didn't solve all of this category. They are few.

An Advice: some of the exercises in early chapters might be easier to do once you read the later chapters. This is due in part that the way you are making progress in the material, and another, some depend on and only "ideas" that are explored in later chapters.

Errata
I've searched the Internet looking for a (maintainable) Errata list, but there's no one. The text has some typos, and otherwise very minor that you could easily spot. I'll mention some:
One of the, perhaps, typos, is in on of the examples related to the conversion between NFAs to DFAs. Another one also in an example to the PDAs, but don't remember exactly.

The Bottom Line
If you are going to have some future work in Automata and Computational theory, you may grab the 3rd Ed. and/or 2nd Ed. to star with, but for sure you should have the 1st Ed. at your disk; it's a "PRIMER."

The best theoretical computer science book out there.
This book is a one stop solution to your theoretical computer science needs (at least, as an introduction). If you're interested in language theory, deterministic / non deterministic finite state automata design, grammars and regular languages, computational complexity (temporal and spatial complexity), this the book for you. The formal notation used in the book is not the heaviest ever seen for this kind of subject, so it remains comprehensible (assumed it's not your first exposition to this discipline). I found it particularly interesting starting from chapter 8, when it covers turing machines, indecidibility in chapter 9 and intractability in chapter 10.
All in all, it's a good introduction to these concepts. I give it 4 stars because some proofs could have been easier, but this is not a big problem. The P and NP classes of problems are wonderfully explained. We are speaking about a book every computer scientist out there should have on his/her shelf. Those who consider this book extremely hard and difficult is because of their lack of fundamental knowledge in computer science. Of course, this is not the first book you should read on the subject. But be assured, this book will give you what it promises: a good knowledge about languages theory, indecidibility and intractability of problems.

Very nice book
I read this book from cover to cover, not because it was required by the Formal Languages course that I took, but because it is a very good read. This book gives all the necessary details in every theorem that it proves, which can be considered both a good and a bad thing, depending on your level of knowledge of the subject. I personally believe it is a good thing, because after reading any proof in this book you do not feel skeptical if it works or not, like it can be after reading a proof that skips lots of steps.

I haven't used their online resources, and I didn't do many problems from this book, because the professor teaching the course came up with problems of his own. However, from what I've seen, they have a very reasonable collection of problems suited for self-study. Every well established field has a list of standard problem, and Language Theory is no exception. The problems in this book certainly cover most of the standard ones. Please, also be aware that although this book is a good read, it is not necessary an easy read - be prepared to invest considerable amount of time into this book.

I cannot give this book 5 stars simply because I do not think it is much better than previous editions. As a matter of fact, I think it is worse. I did not have a very close look at previous editions, but I know for a fact that they were more rigorous and formal and covered more topics. As a result of that, they were less suited for teaching an introductory course, but some of the topics they studied there are really nice. From what I've heard about previous editions though, it seems that they described several open problems, that are no longer open. So I'd suggest getting this new edition, simply because it has more contemporary information.

Some people write in their review that this book requires solid background in the area it covers. I respectfully disagree - I had little to none background in Language Theory and Complexity Theory prior to taking this course and (consequently) starting to read this book; however, I did very well in the course and enjoyed it very much. Of course, I was lucky to have an excellent professor teaching that course. If good books came with good professors that would be a killer package, but unfortunately they don't.

I have not read any other books in this field, so I have nothing to compare with, but all in all, for me it worked great and if you have a good professor and are passionate about the subject, I'm sure this book won't be a miss. ... Read more

Product Description
Parents can assure their child's success in language arts with this simple-to-use, scripted guide. First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind uses picture study and other classical techniques to develop the child's language study in those first two all-important years of school. Each lesson leads the parent, step-by-step, through the simple oral and written projects that build reading, writing, spelling, storytelling, and comprehension skills. Use this book to supplement school learning, or as the center of a home-school language arts course. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (63)

First Language Lessons
This is a very good book in teaching your child grammar.I used it with my son and now will be using it with my daughter.I had borrowed it, but enjoyed it so much that I decided to buy it.

Easy to Use
Very simple and low key, easy to use. Used it with my oldest daughter and using it with my 2nd daughter this fall. A good grammar resource for a classical or eclectic homeschool approach.

This Is A Gift To Any Child!!!
As a grand-mother trying to help my son with his daughter in first grade, I have searched high and low for some good grammar books. We purchased several homeschooling books to help enchance her skills. After reading the first grade portion of this book, I realized that this is one of the best books I have read on grammar in years. I have taken several classes in grammar and I even took a class at the U. of Chicago for my job some years ago and I didn't learn a thing. The instructor was good but the book was a bunch of mumble jumble. Jessie White in my estimation has got it right - repetition, copywork, enrichment activity, etc. I have worked with my grand-daughter for a half an hour, 5 days a week and she now knows what common and proper nouns are in just two weeks. I highly recommend this book to anyone who may need a refresher in grammar like I do or just want to really teach their kids basic grammar. Jessie White and her daughter, Susan are absolutely right, our children are not learning the basics of writting.

excellent old-fashioned grammar
This is old-fashioned grammar with common-sense.It is easy enough for slow learners with enrichment activities for those who need it.This one book covers two years including teacher instruction.Excellent for the money!Hard to find a grammar book for this age that doesn't also have penmanship and spelling.These lessons teach a multitude of non-grammar info such as learning your address, family names, memorization, summarizing, and even analyzing (more than just written works).All of this is age appropriate!My 6 year old can summarize a story better than most public schooled children his age I am sure.He knows his family's names and relations better than before (it's big and complicated), and he can analyze as well!He has already memorized two poems and is working on the third.Excellent teaching book!!!!

Simple, Easy to Use, and Easy to Teach
I have been using this book since the beginning of the school year.We are now at lesson 50.I have to say, "I love it!"The lessons are short, but to the point.My daughter is in first grade and it is just the right level for her.And her 4 year old sister can listen and memorize the poems because they are short.It works really well for our family.

I am always curious about negative reviews.So, I read them for this book.One reviewer mentioned that the author adapted many of the poems.Honestly, I suspected that when we learned the Monday's Child poem.But, I was thankful that it was adapted.The poem that I remember had several negative things.And my son was born on Wednesday--Ugh!In the original poem he would be full of woe--I think the version in this book is one I much prefer.I noticed that other language in that poem is also updated.I think that's okay."Happy and Cheerful" is a lot easier for a first grader to understand than "bonny and blithe".I am comfortable with those modifications.

Another interesting thing that people also commented about not liking the directions for what the parent is to say.I remember one school that I subbed for that used Saxon Phonics.It drove me crazy at the time!It was written out exactly what I needed to say and it seemed a bit extreme to me (first graders were diagramming sentences and words)and it seemed to me that you had to cover every question they had written down exactly a they had written.It truly was a script that needed to be followed.But, not all teaching materials with directions for parents are like that.I don't think this book is.I do follow it most of the time, but I modify the questions when I need to for my children.For teaching reading, I use How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons and love that book.Now, I am so familiar with that book though that I say very little of the script.We go over the sounds and words and story and questions.But--I still appreciate the script if I need it as a reference.I have realized that scripted lessons are not loved by everyone--we all find what method of teaching works best for us and for our kids!

I would recommend this book highly.I am a certified teacher and as I started using this book, I really saw the logic of how the lessons are organized.The lessons are varied--periodically, there is a story or picture with questions about it.I think it is very important for children to understand grammar and so often it seems to be overlooked in our country.I know that when I was student teaching 10 years ago, we never touched it in first grade--or third--or fifth.
... Read more

Product Description
The Meaning Makers is a book about children's language, literacy, and learning. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The meaning makers
This book is a classic. I have been using it for many the last 25 years and it never goes out of date. It is the best source available for explaining in an accessible and useful way to early years teachers and parents how young children's language develops.

A Very Difficult Read
For a book about language and meaning, it is extremely difficult to derive anything from this book!While it includes examples of conversations including young British children and their development, they are only useful if you have had no exposure to children.The remainder of this book is dedicated to explaining how children develop the ability to express and create meaning, but is almost impossible to follow.

There are many great sources available for language development, but this is not one of them! ... Read more

Product Description
This book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Aksum, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The volume brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for scholars and students of linguistics, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language. ... Read more

Product Description

A foreign language degree translates into success!

You've worked hard for that foreign language degree. Now what? Sometimes the choice of careers can seem endless; the most difficult part of a job search is narrowing down your options.

Great Jobs for Foreign Language Majors will help you choose the right career out of the myriad possibilities at your disposal. It provides detailed profiles of careers in your field along with the basic skills necessary to begin a focused job search. You'll soon be on the fast track to landing a job that satisfies your personal, professional, and practical needs.

Great Jobs for Foreign Language Majors will help you:

• Determine the occupation that's best suited for you
• Craft a résumé and cover letter that stand out from the rest
• Learn from practicing professionals about everyday life on the job
• Become familiar with current statistics on salaries and trends within the profession

Go from foreign language major to:
hotel manager * tour director * foreign student advisor * hospital staff interpreter * ESL teacher * undercover agent * librarian * travel agent * customer service manager

Customer Reviews (1)

Pretty decent book, but...
This is a fairly decent book which covers a lot of possiblities for people with a degree in foreign languages.However, the sad truth is that there are not all that many career opportunities for linguists who have not developed a strong (preferrably scientific or technical) second skill.American companies tend to take their linguists for granted, but hopefully this situation will change as more linguists make their way into possitions of authority.For what careers ARE out there this book is fabulous. ... Read more

Product Description
Emotions have long been a central concern in philosophy, psychological and sociological studies. When anthropologists began to study emotion, they challenged many assumptions shared by Western academics and lay persons by exposing the cultural variability of emotional meanings. In this collection of original essays by anthropologists concerned with the relationship of language and emotion, it is argued that the key focus to the study of emotion might be the politics of social life rather than the psychology of the individual. Through close studies of talk about emotion and emotional discourses in social contexts from poetry and song to therapeutic narratives, scholars who have worked in India, Fiji, the United States, Egypt, Senegal and the Solomon Islands show how emotion is tied to politics of everyday interaction. Their arguments and cross-cultural findings will intrigue and provoke anyone who has thought about the relationship between emotion, language and social life. The book will be of special interest to those who find the boundaries between cultural, psychological and linguistic anthropology, sociology, cross-cultural psychiatry, and social psychology too confining. ... Read more

Product Description
This textbook offers a deep understanding of the essential concepts ofprogramming languages. The approach is analytic and hands-on. The textuses interpreters, written in Scheme, to express the semantics of manyessential language elements in a way that is both clear and directlyexecutable. It also examines some important program analyses. Extensiveexercises explore many design and implementation alternatives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

very methodical and simple
its really a nice book to start with functional programming and thinkin in terms of recursion. you can easily write a cool interpreter by following this book cover to .... doesnt explain lambda calculus and combinators in much detail though

Good balance of formal and layman language
I enjoyed this book's implementation-oriented approach to teaching language constructs, in the tune of such classics as SICP. The book title is misleading in that this book focuses almost exclusively on functional languages. But within that realm, it admittedly does cover a broad range of features. The book has just the right amount of formal notation to insure relative completeness, but not so much as to scare away unfamiliar readers. I think it's a nice gentle introduction to the whole field.

As I alluded to, the only reason I didn't give this a 5-star is the slightly misleading general-purposeness appeal, even though it really is entirely functional-oriented. Other than that, the book was a great read.

An Almost Perfect Book
This book is invaluable to someone who is trying to understand how computer languages really work.

The Good
1. Very comprehensive .Covers a whole gamut of programming language features.By the time you finish the book you will have built interpreters which demonstrate recursion, call-by-value/reference/need and name semantics, class based and prototype based OO, type inference ,Continuations etc .

2. Very "Hands on" . You are taught how programming languages work by actually building intrepreters (in other words an Operational Semantics is used) .This is the best way to learn .

3.Environments and Continuations are explained extremely well.

4.Lots of exercises which explore design alternatives . For example the main flow deals with lexical binding of variables, with dynamic binding left as an exercise.

The Bad
1. A certain knowledge of scheme (let letrec, cond) etc is assumed (The First edition was better in this respect and was more self contained)

2.The writing is sometimes unnecessarily dense with long sentences and slighly disjonted paragraphs.

3.some essential features of a language design (eg: memory management ) are skipped entirely.While this is understandable from the pov of reducing the length of the book, it also means that one needs to read supplementary material before one can write real life interpreters.

4.Some parts of the interpretation/compilation process are skipped entirely or treated through "magic". For example the book provides practically no explanation of lexing or parsing and some "magic " code (SLLGEN) is used .The examples for using this framework are thoroughly inadequate.It is better to skip using this framework and just use list syntax and the read functionality of scheme .

Summary

With all its faults (which will probably get fixed in the next edition ) this is an incredible book and should be part of the library of every programmer interested in learning how languages work. As far as i know there isn't a single other book that can do better in conveying how various features of languages really work and interact .

While this book may not be suitable for an undergraduate course of study(withoout an excellent teacher to help students get ove r the difficult bits) it is ideal forthe self taught programmer .

If you don't mind reading extra material/browsing the web to supplement this book, just buy it.

Be sure to have your dictionary on hand while reading...
I honestly don't understand why professors choose this book to teach programming language concepts/semantics.The best books to learn from are written in simple, easy to read language, and with a well-designed index.EOPL lacks both of these attributes.

As a part of the class we had to take reading quizzes on each section, meaning we had to read this book cover to cover.Friedman used complex, difficult to understand language to teach concepts that themselves were difficult to grasp.To make matters worse, the professor simply read from the book during lecture, failing to clarify the mysteries created by Friedman.

An optional book for the class was Programming Language Pragmatics.It explained the implementations of Object Oriented languages, type checking, assembly, etc. using multiple languages people have used before, unlike scheme.I would suggest looking at that book before choosing EOPL.

excellent
I had a lot of fun going through the book and following the steps to build an increasingly sophisticated language interpreter.
Now if only I can get a job writing scheme/lisp code, I'll be all set. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Invaluable guide for going from one culture to another
Dr. Larson is a former professor who I had the privilege to interact with directly.His forte is his ability to deal with the issues of going from one culture to another culture and how to best make yourself one with the culture you are entering.He does this in the context of language, but his principles can be applied more broadly as well.

A treasure trove of help for learning a second language
Do you want to learn and use a foreign language?Or, in Larson's words, are you someone who "lives or is preparing to live in a community where residents use a language that is different from your own?" Consider this a must-have book.The first third of the book lays out abare-bones description of what it takes to learn a new language, what helpsand hinders the process, and how to go about doing it as effectively aspossible.The last two-thirds of the book is composed of daily guidelinesdesigned to move the learner down the road toward fluency.

Larson's bookis a treasure-trove for language learners.He covers the spectrum fromlearning language basics to dealing with interpersonal difficulties andworkplace challenges.Those familiar with Brewster and Brewster's"Language Acquisition Made Practical" (LAMP) will be delightedwith the practicality ofLarson's detailed descriptions of 200 day-to-daylearning situations.

While the book describes how to learn a languagewhile living in a community, it is also a helpful resource for classroomlearning. The principles described can be a help in evaluating and learningwhatever may be missing from the classroom curriculum.

Anyone who findsthis book helpful should also check out Larson's "BecomingBilingual" as well as "Language Acquisition Made Practical,"by E. Thomas Brewster and Elizabeth S. Brewster. ... Read more

Product Description
First published in 1980, this volume is the definitive dictionary and linguistic analysis of the Navajo language. In this revised edition, the entire grammatical section has been rewritten to include a wide range of linguistic information that will establish a foundation for future work in Navajo.

"[Robert Young and William Morgan] have made it possible to educate, communicate, inform, and entertain through the written Navajo language."--Navajo Tribal Council

"[The Navajo Language] is a unique contribution to American Indian linguistics and lexicography. [It is] a reference work of the highest quality, a book that is a rich resource for Navajo speakers, people learning to speak Navajo, and scholars interested in Navajo and Athabaskan linguistics."--International Journal of American Linguistics ... Read more

Product Description

Exploring how concurrent programming can be assisted by language-level techniques, Introduction to Concurrency in Programming Languages presents high-level language techniques for dealing with concurrency in a general context. It provides an understanding of programming languages that offer concurrency features as part of the language definition.

The book supplies a conceptual framework for different aspects of parallel algorithm design and implementation. It first addresses the limitations of traditional programming techniques and models when dealing with concurrency. The book then explores the current state of the art in concurrent programming and describes high-level language constructs for concurrency. It also discusses the historical evolution of hardware, corresponding high-level techniques that were developed, and the connection to modern systems, such as multicore and manycore processors. The remainder of the text focuses on common high-level programming techniques and their application to a range of algorithms. The authors offer case studies on genetic algorithms, fractal generation, cellular automata, game logic for solving Sudoku puzzles, pipelined algorithms, and more.

Illustrating the effect of concurrency on programs written in familiar languages, this text focuses on novel language abstractions that truly bring concurrency into the language and aid analysis and compilation tools in generating efficient, correct programs. It also explains the complexity involved in taking advantage of concurrency with regard to program correctness and performance.

Customer Reviews (1)

First rate introduction to concurrency
Excellent textbook. Well organized. Well written. Easy to follow. Complete.
But, it deserves a much wider audience than the title suggests.

Whether you are an old dog like me, or new to computing, you NEED to understand concurrency. Want to understand concurrency? Just pick up this book and read it. It is very accessible and very clear. Everything is explained in a way that makes you think: "Of course. That just makes sense."

Highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
The first of a series of three books on programming languages directed to undergraduate and graduate students of computer science and information technology. Explains both the basic and some advanced concepts underlying almost all programming languages, and surveys the major programming paradigms with overviews of several important languages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very good PL starter
I have always been interested in PL and always looking for a book whichcovers some of the fundamental issues in a concise, theritical, abstractand understandable way. I think this book is a very satisfactory answer tomy search.

High Points:

covers the fundamentals of PL that I feel mostgraduate CS students must be comfortable with. It directly addresses manysubtle issues which are always confusing when you start in a very neat way.The level of abstraction used for discussing thigs is just right. One canunderstand things reading through the book most of the times It talks aboutthe theoritical angles but again not in a manner that its too difficult toread.

I would highly recommend this book for undergraduate PL class andas a reference book for fundamental concepts. If you feel ever confusedabout difference between types/class, polymorphisms and all, understandingthe real difference between paradigms this is a nice book to go through.The choice of topics covered is also pretty good.

I would have liked tosee more on OOP in the book. Also subtype polymorphism was not covered togreat extent. But that's just me.

I am sure people will find lot to learnfrom this book. ... Read more