Summary
Given a solid OO education and C++ background but having missed some of the traditional CS language theory, what is a minimum required reading list, especially when designing a non-traditional language?

I'm designing CEDSimply to be readable and useful for a lot of non-programmers and people not necessarily wanting to work in English.

This has taken me into some interesting places, playing with Forth and Lisp but I'm now trying to round out my missing education. I do not want to spend the next couple of years doing nothing but reading but I also think there is some core stuff I should have covered to have any credibility in language design and, more importantly, to avoid wasting time reinventing concepts.

I'm currently studying Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and enjoying the slightly older SICP Video Lectures courtesy of Kinoma Producer, transcoded to play on my Palm Zire71. As they are mainly talk, they are good for traffic :-)

On the list next are Marvin Minsky's Frames and the Haskell and Clean programming languages.

Suggestions gratefully accepted!

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About the Blogger

Andy is a free-lance developer in C++, REALbasic, Python, AJAX and other XML technologies. He works out of Perth, Western Australia for a local and international clients on cross-platform projects with a focus on usability for naive and infrequent users. Included in his range of interests are generative solutions, software usability and small-team software processes. He still bleeds six colors, even though Apple stopped, and uses migration projects from legacy Mac OS to justify the hardware collection.