Author Description

In the preface this text is described as intended for an intermediate-level course in computer science Its purpose is to introduce the student "to the science that underlies good programming. While many programming courses teach only programming techniques, this book relates" programming ideas to the underlying mathematical concepts of automata, from languages, data types, and so on." The author believes that these concepts much be introduced much earlier in the curriculum so that the course could be a prerequisite for courses in software engineering and advanced computer science. The book concludes with a number of appendices concerned with teaching computer programming, like how to grade a student program by other criteria than just that it works.