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Closed 11 years ago.

I want to study type system theory. I don t have any background in type system theory so I m more or less a beginner (except the articles I ve read on the subject and which I find intimidating because of the notation used). What are some good books that could get me started? I was looking at Benjamin C. Pierce s "Types and Programming Languages" book. Is that appropriate for a beginner or is it too difficult? If it s too difficult what else could I use to start my study?

Thanks,

--

Cheers, Alex

Answer 1

I think Types and Programming Languages would be a good choice.

When I ve first read TaPL, I was a beginner in type theory as well, and I didn t find it too hard to understand.

You will see a lot of the notation used in the articles you ve seen, but the notation will be explained before it s used, so it shouldn t be a problem. There isn t really anything intimidating about the notation once you know what it means¹.

¹ Which is quite often the case with these things. Sometimes I think that most of mathematics and formal computer science consists of inventing scary-looking notations for simple things, so the uneducated masses don t realize how easy it all really is.

Answer 2

TAPL is a hard book to understand and is aimed at graduates (and possibly phd candidates). It s certainly not for beginners. I would instead recommend a book like Concepts in Programming Languages by John C. Mitchell aimed at undergraduates to get yourself familiar with the basics first.

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