This textbook is a thorough uptodate introduction to the principles and techniques that guide the design and implementation of modern programming languages. The goal of the book is to provide the basis for a critical understanding of most modern programming languages. Thus rather than focusing on a specific language the book identifies the most important principles shared by large classes of languages. The notion of abstract machine is a unifying concept that helps to maintain an accurate and elementary treatment. The book introduces analyses in depth and compares the imperative objectoriented functional logic concurrent constraintbased and serviceoriented programming paradigms. All material coming from the first English edition has been updated and extended clarifying some tricky points and discussing newer programming languages. This second edition contains new chapters dedicated to constraint concurrent and serviceoriented programming.Topics and featuresRequires familiarity with one programming language is a prerequisiteProvides a chapter on history offering context for most of the constructs in use todayPresents an elementary account of semantical approaches and of computabilityIntroduces new examples in modern programming languages like Python or ScalaOffers a chapter that opens a perspective on applications in artificial intelligenceConceived as a university textbook this unique volume will also be suitable for IT specialists who want to deepen their knowledge of the mechanisms behind the languages they use. The choice of themes and the presentation style are largely influenced by the experience of teaching the content as part of a bachelors degree in computer science.