Selected Papers on Computer Languages (Volume 139)

by Donald Ervin Knuth

This volume, sixth in a series of collected works by world-renowned computer scientist Donald E. Knuth, assembles approximately two dozen of his pioneering contributions to the field of computer languages, including papers on ALGOL, SOL, Runcible, and FORTRAN. Papers on the early development of programming languages, the history of writing compilers, the characterization of parenthesis languages, and the semantics of context-free languages are also included.

Genres: Programming, Computer Science

610 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Donald Ervin Knuth, born January 10th 1938, is a renowned computer scientist and Professor Emeritus of the Art of Computer Programming at Stanford University.

Author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming ("TAOCP"), Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms, contributing to the development of, and systematizing formal mathematical techniques for, the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms, and in the process popularizing asymptotic notation.

In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces.

A prolific writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MMIX instruction set architecture.

Reviews

[Eugene Miya]

More a local (to SF Bay Area) brief historic survey, so I gave it 4 stars with that context. Not as comprehensive as Sammet (her job, she gets five stars for her attempt), and perhaps not as current in print as some languages (I can assure you that Knuth has met and know Larry Wall (Perl) and Guido (Python).

The collection came from two seminars of one of Knuth's grad students (the first decades ago for the SF Bay Area ACM chapter and the 2nd was a Computer History Museum talk: recorded). Buy this book to complete DEK's complete set of Selected Papers.