The book is a theoretical and practical guide to understanding the principles of programming languages. Unlike books that teach a single language for application development, this one focuses on the semantics, syntax, and core concepts that are common across languages. It uses Scala as the main teaching language to build interpreters and type checkers, but its goal is not to teach Scala itself; rather, Scala is a tool to explore universal programming language principles.
The book covers key programming language features such as immutability, functions, pattern matching, recursion, mutation, garbage collection, lazy evaluation, continuations, type systems, algebraic data types, and polymorphism. It introduces these by first presenting them in simplified “toy” languages and then showing how to implement interpreters and type checkers for them. This approach ensures readers understand not just how to use language features, but why they work and what rules govern them across programming languages.
Its importance compared to other programming books lies in its generalization. Most beginner programming books teach one specific language (e.g., Python, Java, C++) and focus on syntax and usage. This book instead equips readers with the foundational concepts of programming languages so that they can more easily learn any new language in the future. By separating syntax (surface-level appearance) from semantics (underlying meaning), it teaches readers to recognize the deep commonalities among languages, making it a valuable resource for students, researchers, and advanced programmers aiming to go beyond coding into programming language theory and design.
Waraqa•29m ago
The book is a theoretical and practical guide to understanding the principles of programming languages. Unlike books that teach a single language for application development, this one focuses on the semantics, syntax, and core concepts that are common across languages. It uses Scala as the main teaching language to build interpreters and type checkers, but its goal is not to teach Scala itself; rather, Scala is a tool to explore universal programming language principles.
The book covers key programming language features such as immutability, functions, pattern matching, recursion, mutation, garbage collection, lazy evaluation, continuations, type systems, algebraic data types, and polymorphism. It introduces these by first presenting them in simplified “toy” languages and then showing how to implement interpreters and type checkers for them. This approach ensures readers understand not just how to use language features, but why they work and what rules govern them across programming languages.
Its importance compared to other programming books lies in its generalization. Most beginner programming books teach one specific language (e.g., Python, Java, C++) and focus on syntax and usage. This book instead equips readers with the foundational concepts of programming languages so that they can more easily learn any new language in the future. By separating syntax (surface-level appearance) from semantics (underlying meaning), it teaches readers to recognize the deep commonalities among languages, making it a valuable resource for students, researchers, and advanced programmers aiming to go beyond coding into programming language theory and design.