This book is a British translation of the German book Problemorientierte Programmiersprachen, originally published in 1981. The stated purpose of the book is to “provide a uniform description of the most widely used problem oriented programming languages plus those from which new trends have emerged or could emerge.”

The book is organized strictly by feature. There are no case studies of entire languages. After three introductory chapters (Concepts, Syntax, Examples), the rest of the book is divided into two parts: Passive Objects and Active Objects. The former contains chapters on objects and object modes, declarations, standard object modes, compound objects, and data control. The latter consists of elementary flow control, structured sequential control flow, procedures, coroutines and processes, synchronization of parallel tasks, and input and output.

The book’s strength is its coverage--in very little space--of a large number of features from a great many languages. Each of the languages (ADA, ALGOL 60, ALGOL 68, APL, BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, LISP, PASCAL, PL/I, SIMULA, and SNOBOL) has at least ten entries in the index, and more than 20 other languages are mentioned at least in passing. The detailed index helps the reader locate references to particular languages or features.

Unfortunately, the book’s weaknesses outnumber its strengths. The biggest problem is one of readability. To begin with, the author’s plodding, methodical style makes the book tedious to read. In order to cover so many language issues in so little space (a mere 151 pages), the author is often too concise, saving space by depending heavily on elaborate definitions. Although the examples help, many more are needed to make the book readable. To make matters worse, explanations are often vague or garbled, which is perhaps partially attributable to the fact that the book is a translation.

The author’s writing style is not the only reason that the book is hard to read. His figures often have little or no accompanying explanation, making them more confusing than enlightening. The excessive number of footnotes--over 150--slows down the reader. The book’s German origins also cause problems for the reader. Terminology is often unusual, at least from an American standpoint. (The title of the book is a case in point: by “problem oriented programming language,” the author means “high-level” or “high-order” language.) There are numerous references to little-known European machines and languages, not to mention abundant citations of German national standards.

The book has other faults in addition to poor readability. For one, the author devotes too much space to minor matters of syntax. The book is filled with tables comparing the syntax of a language construct in ten or so different languages.

The list of references--an important feature of any survey book--is of little value. A good number of the references are to German books and papers, which are useful in the original German edition but useless for an English-speaking readership. Of greater concern is the fact that many of the English references are to old or obscure books that are surely long out of print.

The reader must be aware of occasional factual errors. For example, the sample programs in Chapter 3 contain many errors, with the COBOL program being the worst. More often, the author makes statements that, if not incorrect, are at least misleading. Typographical errors abound, perhaps because the author had no opportunity to proofread this translation of his book.

All in all, Schneider’s book lacks an audience: it is too difficult for novices to read and offers nothing new for the expert. A better choice for a study of programming languages would be Pratt’s classic text [1], which is more comprehensive and far easier to read.