A Pragmatic Guide To Programming Languages*

I. Programming Language Concepts

  1. History and Development of Programming Languages

    1. Program Translation (Assemblers, Compilers, and Interpreters)
    2. A Sampling of Historically Significant Languages

  2. Syntax

    1. Finite State Machines (FSM)
    2. Backus Naur Form (BNF)

  3. Semantics

    1. Operational
    2. Denotational
    3. Axiomatic

II. Programming Language Paradigms

  1. Compiled Languages

    1. Java and the JVM
    2. D

  2. Lambda Calculus and Functional Programming Languages

    1. Scheme
    2. Haskell

  3. Declarative Programming Languages

    1. Prolog

  4. Scripting Languages

    1. Ruby
    2. Python

*This on-line text created by Dr. James McGuffee, Associate Professor of Computer Science, St. Edward's University
  Financial support for this project was provided by a St. Edward's University Presidential Excellence Grant, Summer 2008