Be sure to have your dictionary on hand while reading...

I honestly don't understand why professors choose this book to teach programming language concepts/semantics. The best books to learn from are written in simple, easy to read language, and with a well-designed index. EOPL lacks both of these attributes.

As a part of the class we had to take reading quizzes on each section, meaning we had to read this book cover to cover. Friedman used complex, difficult to understand language to teach concepts that themselves were difficult to grasp. To make matters worse, the professor simply read from the book during lecture, failing to clarify the mysteries created by Friedman.

An optional book for the class was Programming Language Pragmatics. It explained the implementations of Object Oriented languages, type checking, assembly, etc. using multiple languages people have used before, unlike scheme. I would suggest looking at that book before choosing EOPL.

Other Reviews

• very methodical and simple
• Good balance of formal and layman language
• An Almost Perfect Book
• Be sure to have your dictionary on hand while reading...