The Denotational Description of Programming Languages: An Introduction

Gordon, Michael J.C.

ISBN 10: 3540904336 / ISBN 13: 9783540904335

Published by Springer-Verlag, 1987

About this Item

Front cover has two hard to see wrinkles, two indentations to back cover, library call number affixed to bottom of spine (otherwise no other library marks). Book is quite clean and attractive, with a tight binding and clean pages.

Seller Inventory # 1022569

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Denotational Description of Programming Languages: An Introduction
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Publication Date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3540904336
• ISBN 13: 9783540904335
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Computer

About this title

Synopsis

This book explains how to formally describe programming languages using the techniques of denotational semantics. The presentation is designed primarily for computer science students rather than for (say) mathematicians. No knowledge of the theory of computation is required, but it would help to have some acquaintance with high level programming languages. The selection of material is based on an undergraduate semantics course taught at Edinburgh University for the last few years. Enough descriptive techniques are covered to handle all of ALGOL 50, PASCAL and other similar languages. Denotational semantics combines a powerful and lucid descriptive notation (due mainly to Strachey) with an elegant and rigorous theory (due to Scott). This book provides an introduction to the descriptive techniques without going into the background mathematics at all. In some ways this is very unsatisfactory; reliable reasoning about semantics (e. g. correctness proofs) cannot be done without knowing the underlying model and so learning semantic notation without its model theory could be argued to be pointless. My own feeling is that there is plenty to be gained from acquiring a purely intuitive understanding of semantic concepts together with manipulative competence in the notation. For these equip one with a powerful conceptua1 framework-a framework enabling one to visualize languages and constructs in an elegant and machine-independent way. Perhaps a good analogy is with for many practical purposes (e. g. engineering calculations) an intuitive understanding of how to differentiate and integrate is all that is needed.