Programming Languages and Operational Semantics

This book provides a concise introduction to the essential concepts in
programming languages, using techniques from operational semantics. It is
addressed to undergraduate students, as a complement to programming
languages or operational semantics courses.

There are three parts in the book, highlighting three major
programming paradigms:

- imperative languages: the main features of these
languages are illustrated using Java, C, Pascal

- functional languages: modern languages such as ML and Haskell are
used to describe the functional style of programming

- logic languages: the last part of the book gives an overview of
logic programming using Prolog.


After a general description of each family of languages, their
semantics are studied using abstract machines and structural
operational semantics. The book gives an in-depth analysis of the
basic concepts in programming languages instead of a mere survey of
languages, privileging the understanding of the basic techniques
underlying the semantics of languages over simply describing their
properties.