Computability and Complexity: From a Programming Perspective

This book is an introduction to the basic concepts of computability, complex, and the theory of programming languages.

This book has two very clear and distinct aims: to present the theory of computability and complexity in a different didactic way, namely as motivated by programming; and to modify notions of complexity theory so that they are more natural. As to the first aim, there is not really much literature in this direction.

This places the text in the category 'highly welcome textbook for computer science students.' The second aim places this text in the category 'research monograph.' Since both parts of the book are presented well, I strongly recommend it. either section alone would be a substantial contribution.

Computability and complexity theory should be of central concern to practitioners as well as theorists. Unfortunately, however, the field is known for its impenetrability. Neil Jones's goal as an educator and author is to build a bridge between computability and complexity theory and other areas of computer science, especially programming.

In a shift away from the Turing machine- and Godel number-oriented classical approaches, Jones uses concepts familiar from programming languages to make computability and complexity more accessible to computer scientists and more applicable to practical programming problems.