Programming Language Pragmatics

Rather than taking a survey approach and enumerating the details of the many different languages used in most introductory programming course, this text focuses on the common concepts that underlie all languages the student is likely to encounter. Further, it explains how a compiler works, what it does to a source program, and why. The text should help readers choose an appropriate programming language for a given application, learn new languages easily, and understand the use of a multitude of languages.