This directory contains a 528 page book on the language Pop11 and much else besides, written by Robin Popplestone, and never published. Robin died in 2004, unfortunately.
With his permission I downloaded the book onto the Poplog web site in 1999, and made it available, but I have not done much to draw attention to it, which is perhaps a pity, as he was a deep thinker.
I believe the title of the book was meant to be:
Paradigms of Programming
Downloading the book
The book is freely downloadable in two formats You may prefer to fetch the smaller file and convert it using ps2pdf, if you have that available.
This book, even though unfinished, may be one of the most extensive sources of documentation on the inner workings of the Pop-11 programming language and is an excellent source of insight on the decisions made by its creators during its development.Popplestone begins with a discussion of the features which define a programming language and explains how Pop-11 was made to meet those requirements. He then follows that with a detailed technical description of everything about Pop-11 from first-order procedure objects to external code invocation and syntax extensions. The writing style in itself remains non-technical and quite enjoyable, and the author brings across his content with great clarity.
Highly recommended to everyone interested in programming (not only in Pop-11), those interested in the history of programming languages (who may also want to read J. A. Anderson's 1989 book "Pop-11 comes of age" for the more autobiographic side of the story) and of course those interested in programming language design (e.g. third year students doing the "Principles of programming languages" module).
Costas Christofi (1st class BSc AI and Computer Science 2009).