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Rating: 
Summary: This book is bad
Review: Althought the authors tried hard, this book really isn't worth the time it takes to read. The book is littered with numerous errors, both technical and theoretical. The writing quality is poor, and the typesetting renders most code samples almost unreadable. The book has been very poorly updated, and still shows a world-view strongly anchored in it's first 1975 edition. A chapter on the web has been tacked on in an effort to make the book seem modern, but the authors seem to be considering html a programming language worthy of inclusion. Although the authors play lip service to explaining the theoretical concepts behind programming language theory, many of their statements are simply given on faith, and the times they do attempt explanations, they are generally either poor or very incomplete.Please, do yourself a favor and get a copy of David Gelernter and Suresh Jagannathan's Programming Linguistics. If you want more of the math behind the theory, John Mitchell's Foundations for Programming Languages is excellent as a supplement, and Jaco de Bakker and Erik de Vink's Control Flow Semantics covers formal semantics from a more strongly mathematical perspective (the other two books are probably prerequisites for this).
Rating:
Summary: Outdated, technically inaccurate.
Review: Althought the authors tried hard, this book really isn't worth the time it takes to read. The book is littered with numerous errors, both technical and theoretical. The writing quality is poor, and the typesetting renders most code samples almost unreadable. The book has been very poorly updated, and still shows a world-view strongly anchored in it's first 1975 edition. A chapter on the web has been tacked on in an effort to make the book seem modern, but the authors seem to be considering html a programming language worthy of inclusion. Although the authors play lip service to explaining the theoretical concepts behind programming language theory, many of their statements are simply given on faith, and the times they do attempt explanations, they are generally either poor or very incomplete. Please, do yourself a favor and get a copy of David Gelernter and Suresh Jagannathan's Programming Linguistics. If you want more of the math behind the theory, John Mitchell's Foundations for Programming Languages is excellent as a supplement, and Jaco de Bakker and Erik de Vink's Control Flow Semantics covers formal semantics from a more strongly mathematical perspective (the other two books are probably prerequisites for this).
Rating: 
Summary: Covers latest tech
Review: Go for it. You can hardly find a similar book that covers many latest languages/tech.
Rating:
Summary: This book is bad
Review: I had to use this book in one of my classes, and it was really bad. It didn't do a good job of explaining anything and was really confusing. Alot of what they had to say seemed to be really out of date, and there were a bunch of technical errors.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible, absolutely terrible
Review: I had to use this for a class and boy was I dissapointed. This book relies more on words than examples. Each sentance feels like a mouthful, packed with words that each refer to a concept in programming. Subsequently, you either have to read extremely slow, or read the paragraph over and over before you understand what the author is trying to say. Extremely unclear and frustrating. Avoid this book.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible, absolutely terrible
Review: I had to use this for a class and boy was I dissapointed. This book relies more on words than examples. Each sentance feels like a mouthful, packed with words that each refer to a concept in programming. Subsequently, you either have to read extremely slow, or read the paragraph over and over before you understand what the author is trying to say. Extremely unclear and frustrating. Avoid this book.
Rating: 
Summary: a good book, but...
Review: I have translated this book to Chinese, in my opinion,
this edition is worse than the previous one.
Some references are not OK,
they are linked to the page in the 3rd edition :).
Rating:
Summary: What a programmer needs before programming languages
Review: I should have written this review years ago except that Internet was not much of a thing when I first read Pratt's book. If I am where I am today as a developer with multiple language skills, it is thanks to Pratt. His approach to introducing languages to a developer is unique - first the concepts followed by how various languages implement the concepts. Wirth's "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs" approaches the same subject but from a different angle. I like Pratt's approach. If you want to be in the developer community, this is what you should read BEFORE you lay your hands on any programming book.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible Text
Review: Please do not get this book. I had this for a class - At first the beginning chapters are simple and easy to comprehend. Starting at about chapter 3 or 4 it is really confusing and the questions at the end of the chapter have nothing to do with the chapter at all, and they must be looked up on the Internet anyway! Even looking up the questions on the Internet was extremely difficult. Answering 4 or 5 questions at the end of each chapter was taking literally hours. You have to read the chapters many, many times to get any comprehension, and even then you will still be dumbfounded. Believe me, what they are talking about in the text could be A LOT more easily stated and shown. Please convince your professor to not use this text. You will be sorry - and I pity anyone who has been required to waste money on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Programming Languages: Design and Implementation
Review: Very good book for the developer who wish to design a good solid software program.
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