The Little MLer


Book Description

with a foreword by Robin Milnerand drawings by Duane Bibby Over the past few years, ML has emerged as one of the most important members of the family of programming languages. Many professors in the United States and other countries use ML to teach courses on the principles of programming and on programming languages. In addition, ML has emerged as a natural language for software engineering courses because it provides the most sophisticated and expressive module system currently available.Felleisen and Friedman are well known for gently introducing readers to difficult ideas. The Little MLer is an introduction to thinking about programming and the ML programming language. The authors introduce those new to programming, as well as those experienced in other programming languages, to the principles of types, computation, and program construction. Most important, they help the reader to think recursively with types about programs.




The Little Typer


Book Description

An introduction to dependent types, demonstrating the most beautiful aspects, one step at a time. A program's type describes its behavior. Dependent types are a first-class part of a language, and are much more powerful than other kinds of types; using just one language for types and programs allows program descriptions to be as powerful as the programs they describe. The Little Typer explains dependent types, beginning with a very small language that looks very much like Scheme and extending it to cover both programming with dependent types and using dependent types for mathematical reasoning. Readers should be familiar with the basics of a Lisp-like programming language, as presented in the first four chapters of The Little Schemer. The first five chapters of The Little Typer provide the needed tools to understand dependent types; the remaining chapters use these tools to build a bridge between mathematics and programming. Readers will learn that tools they know from programming—pairs, lists, functions, and recursion—can also capture patterns of reasoning. The Little Typer does not attempt to teach either practical programming skills or a fully rigorous approach to types. Instead, it demonstrates the most beautiful aspects as simply as possible, one step at a time.




The Little LISPer


Book Description




Essentials of Programming Languages, third edition


Book Description

A new edition of a textbook that provides students with a deep, working understanding of the essential concepts of programming languages, completely revised, with significant new material. This book provides students with a deep, working understanding of the essential concepts of programming languages. Most of these essentials relate to the semantics, or meaning, of program elements, and the text uses interpreters (short programs that directly analyze an abstract representation of the program text) to express the semantics of many essential language elements in a way that is both clear and executable. The approach is both analytical and hands-on. The book provides views of programming languages using widely varying levels of abstraction, maintaining a clear connection between the high-level and low-level views. Exercises are a vital part of the text and are scattered throughout; the text explains the key concepts, and the exercises explore alternative designs and other issues. The complete Scheme code for all the interpreters and analyzers in the book can be found online through The MIT Press web site. For this new edition, each chapter has been revised and many new exercises have been added. Significant additions have been made to the text, including completely new chapters on modules and continuation-passing style. Essentials of Programming Languages can be used for both graduate and undergraduate courses, and for continuing education courses for programmers.




A Little Java, a Few Patterns


Book Description

foreword by Ralph E. Johnson and drawings by Duane Bibby 'This is a book of 'why' not 'how.' If you are interested in the nature of computation and curious about the very idea behind object orientation, this book is for you. This book will engage your brain (if not your tummy). Through its sparkling interactive style, you will learn about three essential OO concepts: interfaces, visitors, and factories. A refreshing change from the 'yet another Java book' phenomenon. Every serious Java programmer should own a copy.' -- Gary McGraw, Ph.D., Research Scientist at Reliable Software Technologies and coauthor of Java Security Java is a new object-oriented programming language that was developed by Sun Microsystems for programming the Internet and intelligent appliances. In a very short time it has become one of the most widely used programming languages for education as well as commercial applications. Design patterns, which have moved object-oriented programming to a new level, provide programmers with a language to communicate with others about their designs. As a result, programs become more readable, more reusable, and more easily extensible. In this book, Matthias Felleisen and Daniel Friedman use a small subset of Java to introduce pattern-directed program design. With their usual clarity and flair, they gently guide readers through the fundamentals of object-oriented programming and pattern-based design. Readers new to programming, as well as those with some background, will enjoy their learning experience as they work their way through Felleisen and Friedman's dialogue. src='/graphics/yellowball.gif' href='/books/FELTP/Java-fm.html'Foreword and Preface




The Seasoned Schemer, second edition


Book Description

The notion that "thinking about computing is one of the most exciting things the human mind can do" sets both The Little Schemer (formerly known as The Little LISPer) and its new companion volume, The Seasoned Schemer, apart from other books on LISP. The authors' enthusiasm for their subject is compelling as they present abstract concepts in a humorous and easy-to-grasp fashion. Together, these books will open new doors of thought to anyone who wants to find out what computing is really about. The Little Schemer introduces computing as an extension of arithmetic and algebra; things that everyone studies in grade school and high school. It introduces programs as recursive functions and briefly discusses the limits of what computers can do. The authors use the programming language Scheme, and interesting foods to illustrate these abstract ideas. The Seasoned Schemer informs the reader about additional dimensions of computing: functions as values, change of state, and exceptional cases. The Little LISPer has been a popular introduction to LISP for many years. It had appeared in French and Japanese. The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer are worthy successors and will prove equally popular as textbooks for Scheme courses as well as companion texts for any complete introductory course in Computer Science.




The Little Prover


Book Description

An introduction to writing proofs about computer programs, written in an accessible question-and-answer style, complete with step-by-step examples and a simple proof assistant.




Why Teams Win


Book Description

Winning isn't easy. The world is becoming more and more competitive, with a greater need than ever for people to work together effectively in teams to make organizations successful. There is no better model for success in business than the world of sport, with its bottom-line performance culture and its relentless focus on creating winning teams. In Why Teams Win, renowned sports psychologist Dr. Saul L. Miller-the man who teaches elite athletes and top sports teams how to be successful-uses sport as a powerful metaphor for the world of business. Why Teams Win distills Dr. Miller's work with hundreds of high-performance teams-in the worlds of sport, business, healthcare, and the arts-into lessons to help business teams perform. Why Teams Win: Identified the 9 key characteristics of successful teams. Describes how to improve personal, organizational, and team performance in each of these 9 areas. Explains how and why to apply different strategies to different types of teams. Outlines how to balance the needs of the individual with the needs of the team. Helps people work together and perform to the best of their abilities. Shows how to get the maximum potential out of a group of individuals. Features advice, quotes, and interviews from high-profile athletes and coaches, as well as from business leaders. Includes self-evaluation and team-building exercises. Why Teams Win offers anyone wanting to improve their personal and team performance a proven and accessible formula for success.




The Reasoned Schemer, second edition


Book Description

A new edition of a book, written in a humorous question-and-answer style, that shows how to implement and use an elegant little programming language for logic programming. The goal of this book is to show the beauty and elegance of relational programming, which captures the essence of logic programming. The book shows how to implement a relational programming language in Scheme, or in any other functional language, and demonstrates the remarkable flexibility of the resulting relational programs. As in the first edition, the pedagogical method is a series of questions and answers, which proceed with the characteristic humor that marked The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer. Familiarity with a functional language or with the first five chapters of The Little Schemer is assumed. For this second edition, the authors have greatly simplified the programming language used in the book, as well as the implementation of the language. In addition to revising the text extensively, and simplifying and revising the “Laws” and “Commandments,” they have added explicit “Translation” rules to ease translation of Scheme functions into relations.




The Rifle


Book Description

It all started because of a rifle. The Rifle is an inspirational story and hero’s journey of a 28-year-old U.S. Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all -- WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a U.S. Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last-living WWII veterans. Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. 96 signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.