Virtual Machines offers a unique insight into the building of virtual machines for sequential, object-oriented and parallel languages, and uses comparisons of different VMs to provide actual, practical examples on how to build VMs.

State transitions are used as a formal technique for the specification of virtual machines throughout and in addition transitions and state transitions relating to the general operation are included for specification of the virtual machine for the event-based system. Two virtual machines are defined using a simple sequential language, which is then generalised to include object and parallelism. Other themes explored include the implementation of VMs and proposals for future work. Appendices contain high-level specifications of two compilers: one for the simple language that serves as the basic example throughout the book, the other for the event-based language specified in Chapter 6.

This book is an essential reference tool for academic and industrial researchers as well as postgraduates in this area.

虚拟机》对顺序语言、面向对象语言和并行语言的虚拟机的构建提供了独特的见解，并使用不同虚拟机的比较来提供关于如何构建虚拟机的实际、实用的例子。

状态转换被用作整个虚拟机规范的形式化技术，此外还包括与一般操作有关的转换和状态转换，用于规范基于事件的系统的虚拟机。使用简单的顺序语言定义了两个虚拟机，然后将其概括为包括对象和并行性。探讨的其他主题包括虚拟机的实现和对未来工作的建议。附录中包含了两个编译器的高级规格：一个是作为全书基本例子的简单语言，另一个是第六章中规定的基于事件的语言。

本书是该领域的学术和工业研究人员以及研究生的重要参考工具。