Design Concepts in Programming Languages

Welcome to the web site for Design Concepts in Programming Languages, a book about programming language semantics and design written by Franklyn Turbak and David K. Gifford with Mark Sheldon. The book is based on MIT's introductory graduate programming languages course (6.821) and is targeted at introductory graduate students and advanced undergraduate students. Many people helped in developing parts of the book, especially Trevor Jim, Brian Reistad, and Jonathan Rees.

The book is currently being reviewed for publication, and we have been advised to remove links to the draft chapters. For more information about the book, please send email to fturbak@wellesley.edu.

Here are the current table of contents, bibliography, and index to the current draft of the book (as of Dec. 6, 2005):

  • Table of Contents [PS] [PDF]
  • Bibliography [PS] [PDF]
  • Index [PS] [PDF] The current index is incomplete and inconsistent, but is still helpful. Almost all page numbers mentioned in the index should be consistent with the draft chapters handed out in the Fall '05 6.821 course. In rare cases, minor edits in these chapters may have cause some of the page numbers mentioned in the index to be one page later than the actual reference in the draft chapters.
  • For Fall'05 MIT 6.821 students, here are two versions of the contents, bibliography, and index. The Nov. 22 version covers the book except for the final chapter (Ch. 17: Compilation). The Dec. 6 version should be used for Ch. 17 only.

  • Table of Contents: (Nov. 22: [PS] [PDF] ) (Dec 6: [PS] [PDF] )
  • Bibliography: (Nov 22: [PS] [PDF] ) (Dec 6: [PS] [PDF] )
  • Index (Nov 22: [PS] [PDF] ) (Dec 6: [PS] [PDF] )