Most object-oriented or functional languages are higher order languages, ones in
which the means of manipulation can itself be manipulated. This important
reference contains a collection of original articles about recent developments
in operational semantics for higher order programming languages by some of the
leading researchers in the field. Operational techniques are important because
they are closer to implementations and language definitions than more abstract
mathematical techniques such as denotational semantics. One of the exciting
developments recounted in the book is that mathematical structures and
techniques used in denotational semantics (such as fixpoint induction) may be
recovered from a purely operational starting point. The book surveys and
introduces techniques