Advanced programming language design

What Hacker News says

1. rramadassApr 2026
   Folks might find the following useful for studying PLs;

   1) Advanced Programming Language Design by Raphael Finkel - A classic (late 90s) book comparing a whole smorgasbord of languages.

   2) Design Concepts in Programming Languages by Franklyn Turbak et al. - A comprehensive (and big) book on PL design.

   3) Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy et al. - Shows how to organically add different programming paradigms to a simple core language.

   Show morethread
2. rramadassSep 2025
   For an introduction to different languages (both from Industry and Academia) from different programming paradigms (i.e. Imperative/OO/Functional/Dataflow/Concurrent/Declarative/Logic/Aggregate) see Raphael Finkel's Advanced Programming Language Design.
   thread
3. rramadassFeb 2025
   I have had some back-and-forth with some rustaceans here on HN and most seem to be cargo culting. I am all for enthusiasm/evangelism when there really is something noteworthy but not blind religious fervour. Graydon Hoare/Manish Goregaokar are on record saying they took good ideas from old (and lesser known) languages and putting them together in Rust based on their view of how a modern language should be like. Obviously this is not a bad thing but folks need to be aware of history and how they got to where they are now.

   Rustaceans would do well to read something like Raphael Finkel's book Advanced Programming Language Design where a whole bunch of languages and their unique features are shown/compared.

   Show morethread
4. rramadassFeb 2025
   Right. After Java in the mid-90s, Rust has become the most hyped language. Meanwhile C/C++ have been quietly adding in wisdom from lessons learned in the trenches and have gotten much better.

   Next time a rustacean starts jumping up and down, show them Raphael Finkel's book Advanced Programming Language Design so that they can understand there is nothing new under the sun.

   thread
5. rramadassJun 2024
   The problem you mention is rather common to senior/experienced developers. One way to get back the "joy of programming" is to study the programming language domain as a whole including Programming Language Theory, Formal Methods, Programming Paradigms and Techniques etc. Most people just focus on the needed mechanics of Programming (because job) without really bothering to look behind the curtain and hence quickly get bored/disillusioned. You have to really motivate yourself to dig deeper. But once you do this, you will begin to look at programming languages in a whole different light.

   I found the following useful to get back (ongoing) my "joy of programming";

   1) Advanced Programming Language Design by Raphael Finkel.

   2) Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi.

   3) Understanding Formal Methods by Jean-Francois Monin.

   4) Design Concepts in Programming Languages by Turbak and Gifford.

   Show morethread
6. HillRatJan 2015
   I should point out that my academic background was political science and econometrics, with only a smattering of comp. sci courses in college, so I'm also an autodidact in computer science -- my recommendations come from my own experience.

   You will want Knuth's TAOCP (especially since you mentioned you've had trouble with sorting and searching algorithms), but it's not something to start with. Likewise, Hopcroft and Ullman's "Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation" is a crucial text, but it's highly abstract (much more so than Knuth, which is a very practical work) and very, very slow going. Pick it up later when you're comfortable with mathematical formalisms.

   You'll want to, relatively early on, find a readable introduction to discrete mathematics (the mathematics of "countable" objects, like sets and integers) and some of the more useful optimization techniques like linear programming. I used Grimaldi's "Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics" to good effect.

   Eventually, pick up some good textbooks on programming language design (not parsing and compilation), like Turbak et al's "Design Concepts in Programming Languages" and Finkel's "Advanced Programming Language Design."

   Also, a few more sitting on my bookshelf that I also highly recommend -- "Computer Organization and Design," "Operating System Concepts" (the famous "Dinosaur book"), and (if you want to get into the nuts and volts of hardware), Horowitz's "Art of Electronics." Great works.

   That should tide you over for the next few years -- but it'll be fun reading. Really!

   Show morethread