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54 of 55 found the following review helpful:
 Outstanding introduction to programming languages and their compilersFeb 07, 2006
By Lars Tackmann
Over the years the Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools (2nd Edition) (also knwon as the dragon book) has become the de facto standard for introducing compilers and related topics at universities. This is very unfortunate because "Programming Language Pragmatics" is in a completely different league and should be the one used instead. It gives the student (or the self taught) a complete and through overview of parsing, grammar, automata theory and other key language constructs. What really differentiates this book from others (and most notably the (in)famous "Dragon Book") is that it does so in a easy to understand manner and with lots of well written examples.
Many people find compiler and language theory to be dark magic, and it would be wrong not to acknowledge that these subjects are considerably harder than say creating a web page in PHP or writing a small Java/C# program. But much of the confusion also stems from the long history of porly written books which all have lacked explaining key areas or assumed that the readers just know some obscure CS topics beforehand. This book does not travel down that road, it is well written, contains both simple and advanced examples and is simply a delightful read.
48 of 51 found the following review helpful:
Required for every Compiler EngineerFeb 20, 2005
By Jos van Roosmalen
This is must read for every compiler engineer.
This book is 800+ pages of theory behind language design and processing of languages.
Altought it is very theoretical, it's very easy to read and well written and a pleasure to read. There are a lot of examples/figures/tables etc to explain things. I recommend people which are totally new to language design/compiler design to first read an introduction text. I can really recommend 'programming language processors in java' from Watt and Brown. This is a really good book.
The title of the book suggest that this book will only cover Language Design. In reality chapter 2, 3,4 and 5 covers in depth resp. Syntax checking (parsing), Names/Scope/Binding, Semantic Analysis and processor architecture.
Beside in depth analysis of language design (e.g. OO-, functional-, imperative- and logical-languages) it gives some practical implementation advice/tips. E.g. there are only a few compilerbooks which seriously talks about the different parsing error recovery techniques. This book explain some different recovery methods. Probably error recovery is not scientific enough for the other books, but for a compiler user error recovery is really important.
A last tip: this book comes in 2 editions: a paperback and hardcover edition. If you want to save some money buy the paperback.
34 of 36 found the following review helpful:
Tough Topic - Crystal Clear ExplanationJun 03, 2001
By Cher-Wah Tan
I have always enjoyed reading programming-language and compiler books and most of them are quite tough on a first-read.Programming Language Pragmatics is one huge exception. None of the books I have read come close to the clarity that this book exhibits. On many occassions, the choice of words and presentation in this book has made me go 'Wow, I thought I already knew this stuff...' Besides core topics, it has interesting discussion like concurrency, data-abstraction (object-oriented) and non-imperative programming models (functional and logic). TOC (with my comments) Ch. 1 Introduction Ch. 2 Programming Language Syntax (theory of Regular Expression, Context-Free Grammars, Automata etc) Ch. 3 Names, Scopes, and Bindings (binding, scope rules, closures etc) Ch. 4 Semantic Analysis (attribute grammars, attribute flow, syntax tree etc) Ch. 5 Assembly-Level Computer Architecture (keeping the pipeline full, register allocation etc) Ch. 6 Control Flow (expression evaluation, iteration, recursion, nondeterminacy etc) Ch. 7 Data Types (type checking, pointers and recursive types etc) Ch. 8 Subroutines and Control Abstraction (stack layout, calling sequences, parameter passing etc) Ch. 9 Building a Runnable Program (back-end compiler structure, intermediate forms etc) Ch. 10 Data Abstraction and Object Orientation (encapsulation, inheritance, dynamic method binding, multiple inheritance, the object model of smalltalk) Ch. 11 Nonimperative Programming Models: Functional and Logic Languages Ch. 12 Concurrency (shared memory, message passing etc) Ch. 13 Code Improvement (peephole, redundancy elimination, data flow analysis, loop improvement, instruction scheduling, register allocation etc) App. A Programming Languages Mentioned App. B Language Design and Language Implementation This is a very impressive book; truly one of my best investments in books so far.
23 of 24 found the following review helpful:
Surprisingly thoroughJul 12, 2000
By Dobes Vandermeer
As the subject suggests, I was surprised to discover how thorough this book really is; many others might claim they cover many languages, but this one really does. On top of that, it uses language easily understood outside of the academia. On the flipside, however, I doubt you will get much out of this book if you have not explored several different programming languages already. Without a bit of experience in the covered topics you will probably not find the book to be very useful, however. It does not contain any tutorials on the languages it covers, nor does it really go into any depth on many of the features it describes. Its descriptions are very concise, making for a hard read if you dont have an inkling of what he is talking about already.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
If you buy the Kindle Edition, you can obtain the missing portions of the book online.Dec 10, 2010
By tom8675309
UPDATED 3/2011: I had originally posted the review below, complaining that the Kindle version of Programming Language Pragmatics was a rip-off, because (1) you didn't get the CD that accompanies the print version, and (2) that missing CD includes large portions of the book. In March 2011, the publisher posted a responsive comment providing a link to an on-line copy of the material on the CD. Currently, the url is [...] . Given that the missing parts of the book are now available even if one buys the Kindle version, my original complaints about the book are no longer valid. I've kept the original review below just for context, but please note that I now have only good things to say about the book, which is worth reading in its entirety.
ORIGINAL REVIEW from 12/2010 (NOW SUPERSEDED - see above): Michael L. Scott's Programming Language Pragmatics is an excellent book about programming languages, language design, and compilers. Unfortunately, the Kindle edition simply omits large portions of the book. It's a rip-off. If you want the complete book, stick with the print edition. Here's the problem. Starting with the second edition, and continuing with the third edition, parts of the print edition were moved to a companion CD - for example, parts of chapters 2, 3, and 4, and all of chapter 5, are on the companion CD that accompanies the print edition - in order to keep the print edition from being too thick. Unfortunately, in the Kindle edition, they have neither integrated the companion CD into the text, nor provided you with the CD (or its contents) - you simply don't get those portions of the book at all. This is a rip-off - you are paying just as much for the Kindle edition as you would for the print edition, but not getting the entire book. I was looking forward to reading this on my Kindle, having read prior editions in hardcopy, but once I realized that I didn't get the entire book, I had Amazon refund my money and ordered the print edition.
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