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RandomDSdevel / Programming-Language-Development-Reference

A list of resources useful for developing programming languages.
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Decide Whether to Add 'Practical Foundations for Programming Languages (Second Edition)' #3

Open RandomDSdevel opened 4 years ago

RandomDSdevel commented 4 years ago

     I currently don't know if this would be a good idea or not. Per on-hiatus-or-abandoned/add_read-me_entries_from_Slack/Practical-Foundations-for-Programming-Languages-Second-Edition's branch description, my reservations from an initial impression of the work from starting to take a first look at it are as follows:

…I [feel] that Robert Harper's Practical Foundations for Programming Languages (Second Edition) is:

  • Not confirmed to be a standard work or otherwise a reputable textbook.
  • At least for general consumption and use, too:
    • Advanced.
    • Terse.
    • Technical.
    • Formal (in the sense of mathematical formalism.)

For another thing, I can't remember where I first saw this book, anyway. Other texts on programming-language design might fit better here in this repository; I need to take another pass at looking over what's out there.

(Possibly CC @dshadowwolf…?)

RandomDSdevel commented 4 years ago

     I found a blog post which lists it. Tangentially, perhaps that could be a candidate for inclusion here, either directly or as a source.

dshadowwolf commented 4 years ago

I'd suggest looking at some other documents - such as the one I believe Knuth authored about the design choices of TeX (or was that by the original author of LaTeX ? I forget...)

Basically... they get really, really technical. And can get really mathematical, as parsing can be considered a branch of set theory.

RandomDSdevel commented 4 years ago

     (Note: I've renamed the branch housing the changes mentioned in this issue's OP to 'on-hiatus-or-abandoned/add-Practical-Foundations-for-Programming-Languages-Second-Edition'. I'll edit it to reflect this later, then delete this note.)