Programming Language Theory
Peter J. Landin
Peter John Landin (1930–2009) was a British computer scientist whose work founded key areas of programming language theory. He introduced the SECD abstract machine, articulated the correspondence between ALGOL 60 and the lambda calculus, proposed the ISWIM language, coined terms such as “syntactic sugar,” and formulated the off‑side (indentation) rule.
Syntactic sugar
Syntactic sugar is a term in programming language design for surface-level syntax that makes code easier to write or read without increasing a language’s expressive power. Coined by Peter J. Landin in 1964, it is typically compiled away by translating to more primitive constructs, a process often called desugaring.