Publisher's Synopsis
Aimed at those wishing to acquire a solid understanding of systematic programming, this book employs the use of linguistic abstraction in preference to mathematical abstraction. It uses the programming language ELAN, considered to be a "daughter" of Algol 68, which is being designed specifically for the teaching and practice of systematic programming.;The didactic approach followed by the author can be applied when using other languages since Elan has been specially designed to support a number of systematic programming methods, eg, Top-down, recursive, Bottom-up, and modular programming. The book is a careful introduction to concepts and terms, both regarding the programming language and programming practice itself. The concepts and terms are not confined to Elan and can be used to understand programming in any language. Standard terminology is used as far as possible, but complex jargon avoided.;The book is intended both for self-study and to help those teaching in secondary schools, polytechnics and universities. In addition to methods and language, it also provides a collection of algorithms and data structures which every professional computer scientist should know. A software disc of the Elan language will be available from the publishers shortly.
