Textbooks

Required Texts

Gunter, C. Semantics of Programming Languages: Structures and Techniques, MIT Press, 1992.

Recommended Texts

LaTeX is the typesetting tool of discerning semanticists, so you'll need some LateX reference materials. The primary LaTeX books on my bookshelf are:

• Lamport, L. LaTeX: A Document Preparation System (Updated for LaTeX2e), Addison-Wesley, 1994.
• Mittelbach and Goossens. The LaTeX Companion: 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 2004. The first edition of this book, produced in 1994, was a handy guide to a variety of add-on packages and other arcana of LaTeX2e. It covered this in a mere 530 pages. The second edition has swollen to 1090 (thankfully thin!) pages. I keep the first edition on my bookshelf close at hand.

There are many good books on semantics. Here are a few, in alphabetical order. Some are out of print, but some of those are available online. If anybody finds online copies of any of these, please let me know and I'll add them to the list.

• Barendregt, H.P. The Lambda Calculus: Its Syntax and Semantics, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1981. The bible. This used to be available online. (Can anybody find a current link?) Also check out the great customer review at Amazon.
• Felleisen and Flatt. Programming Languages and Lambda Calculi. Unpublished but available online.
• Chris Hankin, Lambda Calculi: A Guide for Computer Scientists, Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Mitchell, John C. Foundations for Programming Languages. MIT Press, 1996.
• Nielson and Nielson Semantics with Applications. John Wiley, 1992. out of print, but available on the web (author's page; local pdf).
• Pierce, Benjamin. Types and Programming Languages. MIT Press, 2002.
• Pierce, Benjamin, editor. Advanced Topics in Types and Programming Languages. MIT Press, 2005
• Schmidt, David Denotational Semantics: A Methodology for Language Development, Wm. C. Brown, 1988.
• Winskel, Glynn. The Formal Semantics of Programming Languages: an introduction, MIT Press, 1993. I've used this as a text for this course in the past.