Just want to push back a bit and leave a dissenting view on ML for the Working Programmer. If one actually works their way through the text, by the end they will have written a basic interpreter for the lambda calculus, and a small tactics oriented theorem prover, either one of which is highly illuminating to someone who hasn't done this before. The text may not educate a reader on dependent type theory or similar developments but I'm struggling to understand how it is otherwise "dated".
Other than that thank you for keeping SML in front of people, I for one appreciate it, its probably my favorite language these days
I see your point. I guess it's just the title that has turned me off even after reading the book.
It doesn't seem to send the right message these days if the idea is that working programmers are building lambda calculus interpreters or theorem provers? Even interpreting a lisp would seem more practical.
I think Practical Common Lisp was more in the right track for content but today I'd focus more explicitly on language design or backend system design.
Andrew Appel's book does already fill the language design slot though nicely.
