Compared to other languages, 179 pages for the full specification is pretty small. Java and C sharp have that more than three that size. C++ is roughly five times as large. If you're a fan of functional languages, Haskell is almost twice as large. Even Scheme, an extremely simple language, is only about 30 pages shorter.
The book "The Definition of Standard ML" is ~150 pages for a language that is simple (IMO) and rich. Bonus, the definition is not written in prose, but with typing rules and operational semantics.
> Bonus, the definition is not written in prose, but with typing rules and operational semantics.
While that is certainly nice, I suspect it makes it hard to really compare based on just pagecount. I doubt prose and such a formal definition like that are equally dense.
Agreed. From what I've read [1], the syntax rules and semantic rules take up about 40 pages with the rest of the book being "introduction, exposition, core material, appendices and index".
