| Comparative Metric Semantics of Programming Languages: Nondeterminism and Recursion 1998 Edition Contributor(s): Breughel, Franck Van (Author) |
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ISBN: 1461286808 ISBN-13: 9781461286806 Publisher: Birkhauser OUR PRICE: $104.49 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2011 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Mathematics | Applied - Mathematics | Counting & Numeration - Computers | Data Processing |
| Dewey: 004.015 |
| Series: Progress in Theoretical Computer Science |
| Physical Information: 0.52" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (0.77 lbs) 220 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: During the last three decades several different styles of semantics for program- ming languages have been developed. This book compares two of them: the operational and the denotational approach. On the basis of several exam- ples we show how to define operational and denotational semantic models for programming languages. Furthermore, we introduce a general technique for comparing various semantic models for a given language. We focus on different degrees of nondeterminism in programming lan- guages. Nondeterminism arises naturally in concurrent languages. It is also an important concept in specification languages. In the examples discussed, the degree of non determinism ranges from a choice between two alternatives to a choice between a collection of alternatives indexed by a closed interval of the real numbers. The former arises in a language with nondeterministic choices. A real time language with dense choices gives rise to the latter. We also consider the nondeterministic random assignment and parallel composition, both couched in a simple language. Besides non determinism our four example languages contain some form of recursion, a key ingredient of programming languages. |