从计算机发展史早期的Cobol、Fortran到后来的C、Java，编程语言的家族不断壮大。除了这些广为人知的语言外，还涌现了Erlang、Ruby等后起之秀，它们虽被喻为小众语言，但因其独特性也吸引了为数不少的追随者。
Bruce A. Tate是软件行业的一名老兵，他有一个宏伟目标：用一本书的篇幅切中要害地探索七种不同的语言。本书就是他的成果。书中介绍了Ruby、Io、Prolog、Scala、Erlang、Clojure和Haskell这七种语言，关注每一门语言的精髓和特性，重点解决如下问题：这门语言的类型模型是什么，编程范式是什么，如何与其交互，有哪些决策构造和核心数据结构，有哪些独特的核心特性。
在这个飞速发展的信息时代，程序员仅仅掌握甚至精通一门语言是远远不够的。了解多门语言蕴涵的思维方式，在编码中互相借鉴，再挑出一两门对自己口味的语言深入学习，这些已经成为在软件行业中安身立命之本。从这个意义上说，每个程序员都应该看看这本书。

Scheme is a general-purpose programming language, descended from Algol and Lisp, widely used in computing education and research and a broad range of industrial applications. This thoroughly updated edition of The Scheme Programming Language provides an introduction to Scheme and a definitive reference for standard Scheme, presented in a clear and concise manner. Written for professionals and students with some prior programming experience, it begins by leading the programmer gently through the basics of Scheme and continues with an introduction to some of the more advanced features of the language.
The fourth edition has been substantially revised and expanded to bring the content up to date with the current Scheme standard, the Revised6 Report on Scheme. All parts of the book were updated and three new chapters were added, covering the language's new library, exception handling, and record-definition features.
The book offers three chapters of introductory material with numerous examples, eight chapters of reference material, and one chapter of extended examples and additional exercises. All of the examples can be entered directly from the keyboard into an interactive Scheme session. Answers to many of the exercises, a complete formal syntax of Scheme, and a summary of forms and procedures are provided in appendixes.
The Scheme Programming Language is the only book available that serves both as an introductory text in a variety of courses and as an essential reference for Scheme programmers.

drawings by Duane Bibbyforeword and afterword by Guy L. Steele Jr.The notion that "thinking about computing is one of the most exciting things the human mind can do" sets both The Little Schemer (formerly known as The Little LISPer) and its new companion volume, The Seasoned Schemer, apart from other books on LISP. The authors' enthusiasm for their subject is compelling as they present abstract concepts in a humorous and easy-to-grasp fashion. Together, these books will open new doors of thought to anyone who wants to find out what computing is really about. The Little Schemer introduces computing as an extension of arithmetic and algebra;things that everyone studies in grade school and high school. It introduces programs as recursive functions and briefly discusses the limits of what computers can do. The authors use the programming language Scheme, and interesting foods to illustrate these abstract ideas. The Seasoned Schemer informs the reader about additional dimensions of computing: functions as values, change of state, and exceptional cases. The Little LISPer has been a popular introduction to LISP for many years. It had appeared in French and Japanese. The Little Schemer and The SeasonedSchemer are worthy successors and will prove equally popular as textbooks for Scheme courses as well as companion texts for any complete introductory course in Computer Science.

This delightful book leads you through the basic elements of programming in Scheme (a Lisp dialect) via a series of dialogues with well-chosen questions and exercises. Besides teaching Scheme, The Little Schemer teaches the reader how to think about computation. The authors focus on ten essential concepts of thinking about how to compute and demonstrate how to apply these concepts in inventive ways. The Little Schemer is an excellent book both for the beginner and for the seasoned programmer.

This introduction to programming places computer science in the core of a liberal arts education. Unlike other introductory books, it focuses on the program design process. This approach fosters a variety of skills--critical reading, analytical thinking, creative synthesis, and attention to detail--that are important for everyone, not just future computer programmers.
The book exposes readers to two fundamentally new ideas. First, it presents program design guidelines that show the reader how to analyze a problem statement; how to formulate concise goals; how to make up examples; how to develop an outline of the solution, based on the analysis; how to finish the program; and how to test. Each step produces a well-defined intermediate product. Second, the book comes with a novel programming environment, the first one explicitly designed for beginners. The environment grows with the readers as they master the material in the book until it supports a full-fledged language for the whole spectrum of programming tasks.
All the book's support materials are available for free on the Web. The Web site includes the environment, teacher guides, exercises for all levels, solutions, and additional projects.
-- amazon.com