Jeffrey D. Ullman

This highly accessible introduction to the fundamentals of ML is presented by computer science educator and author, Jeffrey D. Ullman. The primary change in the Second Edition is that it has been thoroughly revised and reorganized to conform to the new language standard called ML97. This is the first book that offers both an accurate step-by-step tutorial to ML programming and a comprehensive reference to advanced features. It is the only book that focuses on the popular SML/NJ implementation. The material is arranged for use in sophomore through graduate level classes or for self-study. This text assumes no previous knowledge of ML or functional programming, and can be used to teach ML as a first programming language. It is also an excellent supplement or reference for programming language concepts, functional programming, or compiler courses.

1. The material on optimization has been expanded, by including a discussion of the System R approach to optimization, tableau-based methods, and optimization in the distributed environment. 2. There is a discussion of universal relation systems, which are relational database systems that support a user view that looks like a single relation. 3. Concurrency control by "optimistic," or timestamp-based methods has been introduced. 4. Distributed systems are covered, both for optimization issues and concurrency control. 5. A discussion of data structures for range queries appears. 6. There is an introduction to generalized dependencies and their inference. The second edition was prepared using Don Knuth's TEX typesetting system.