4 ms·

(strictly imo) the 2nd and 3d editions are fine books and cover a lot of material, but they don't have as much (for lack of a better word) depth as the first ed

(strictly imo) the 2nd and 3d editions are fine books and cover a lot of material, but they don't have as much (for lack of a better word) depth as the first edition. If you can get the first edition, it is certainly worth reading.

abecedarius 9y ago
I worked through most of the first edition (skipping much of the OO chapter) and read the later editions pretty lightly. They're more polished and developed, e.g. explaining better code for the CPS transform, adding a chapter on types, and such. But they do give me a bit of a spoon-fed vibe compared to the first edition, I guess as a result of optimizing it from classroom feedback. I'm not sure depth is the right characterization of the difference -- I didn't get that impression, besides the compiling chapter getting dropped. But then I didn't study them as much (though I did report an erratum in the second edition).
- mangodrunk 9y ago
  From this review: http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/book-review-essentials-of-programming-languages-by-d-friedman-and-m-wand/ http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/book-review-essentials-of-... The book doesn't seem that great for self-study. Would you confirm or reject that assessment?
  - abecedarius 9y ago
    I did self-study it. I agree that just reading probably won't teach you much -- you need to program your way through the exercises, at least many of them. Getting stuck on a problem could make things difficult on your own and maybe rob you of momentum. This is a hitch I run into with math books a lot more than programming books, personally, but now that you bring it up this may be an issue I should've thought of. (Like him I also worked through SICP this way.)
    - mangodrunk 9y ago
      Good to know. Could you say how long it took you to go through EOPL? Would you recommend another book on the topic for self-study? I've been hesitant at starting these books because I was thinking too that without the exercises, it would be a lot less useful, and so it would be a bigger time/effort commitment than I want to get into.
      - abecedarius 9y ago
        Here's one of the newer ones I mentioned, which I haven't read but seems well regarded: http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/ http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/ EoPL took about as much work as a good college class, minus the sitting-in-lectures-and-tests part. Some parts aren't depended on later, like the OO chapter IIRC, so they're up to whether you're interested.
  - plinkplonk 9y ago
    I used it (1st edition) for self study.just a datapoint.

abecedarius 9y ago

I worked through most of the first edition (skipping much of the OO chapter) and read the later editions pretty lightly. They're more polished and developed, e.g. explaining better code for the CPS transform, adding a chapter on types, and such. But they do give me a bit of a spoon-fed vibe compared to the first edition, I guess as a result of optimizing it from classroom feedback. I'm not sure depth is the right characterization of the difference -- I didn't get that impression, besides the compiling chapter getting dropped. But then I didn't study them as much (though I did report an erratum in the second edition).

mangodrunk 9y ago
From this review: http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/book-review-essentials-of-programming-languages-by-d-friedman-and-m-wand/ http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/book-review-essentials-of-... The book doesn't seem that great for self-study. Would you confirm or reject that assessment?
- abecedarius 9y ago
  I did self-study it. I agree that just reading probably won't teach you much -- you need to program your way through the exercises, at least many of them. Getting stuck on a problem could make things difficult on your own and maybe rob you of momentum. This is a hitch I run into with math books a lot more than programming books, personally, but now that you bring it up this may be an issue I should've thought of. (Like him I also worked through SICP this way.)
  - mangodrunk 9y ago
    Good to know. Could you say how long it took you to go through EOPL? Would you recommend another book on the topic for self-study? I've been hesitant at starting these books because I was thinking too that without the exercises, it would be a lot less useful, and so it would be a bigger time/effort commitment than I want to get into.
    - abecedarius 9y ago
      Here's one of the newer ones I mentioned, which I haven't read but seems well regarded: http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/ http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/ EoPL took about as much work as a good college class, minus the sitting-in-lectures-and-tests part. Some parts aren't depended on later, like the OO chapter IIRC, so they're up to whether you're interested.
- plinkplonk 9y ago
  I used it (1st edition) for self study.just a datapoint.