Comments on: How To Learn Lisp http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/ Peter Christensen's Blog Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:25:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Peter http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1464 Peter Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:59:18 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1464 Two ways I would recommend if you're a complete novice: <ol> <li>Buy the book "The Little Schemer" and download Racket (http://racket-lang.org/). Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) is highly regarded in professional and educational circles and has 15 yrs of experience making Scheme easier and more powerful. </li> <li>Buy the book "Land of Lisp (http://landoflisp.com/) and download the LispWorks personal package (http://www.lispworks.com/products/features.html). More information about CL on Windows here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/110390/whats-a-good-common-lisp-implementation-for-windows</li> </ol> Hope that helps! Two ways I would recommend if you’re a complete novice:

  1. Buy the book “The Little Schemer” and download Racket (http://racket-lang.org/). Racket (formerly PLT Scheme) is highly regarded in professional and educational circles and has 15 yrs of experience making Scheme easier and more powerful.
  2. Buy the book “Land of Lisp (http://landoflisp.com/) and download the LispWorks personal package (http://www.lispworks.com/products/features.html). More information about CL on Windows here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/110390/whats-a-good-common-lisp-implementation-for-windows

Hope that helps!

]]> By: Saurabh http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1460 Saurabh Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:03:21 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1460 Dear Peter, How can one learn Lisp, with the only knowledge of language C, in windows xp/7 environment? thanks in advance Dear Peter,

How can one learn Lisp, with the only knowledge of language C, in windows xp/7 environment?

thanks in advance

]]> By: Paul http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1410 Paul Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:06:22 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1410 I've gone through quite a few of the old 1980's and earlier Lisp and Scheme textbooks like Touretzky,Winston,Wilensky,Tatar,Little Lisper,Little Schemer, etc. and since around 2001, tried several implementations like PowerLisp and X-Lisp. I also tried out the online ELM-ART tutor. Most of these will bore one to death with "basics" about atoms, CAR,CDR,S-expressions and matching parentheses before you ever get to how to print something to the screen. So, I really liked the practical 'roll-up-your sleeves-and-let's-start-programming' approach in Practical Common Lisp (PCL) and getting CLISP/Slime/Emacs up and running on a Windows OS was a breeze with LISPBOX. I also liked the modern practical projects in PCL. However, I strongly dislike the dated,1980's, command line Slime/Emacs interface. The worksheet idea in PowerLisp on Mac OS seemed much better and easier to work with. But overall, one seems to be climbing a hill. PowerLisp (MAC OS) is now obsolete (Buy Corman Lisp) and TLISP source code from the 1980's has to be converted to Common Lisp etc. and new languages like Python have all kinds of modern extensions and libraries that are hard to find for LISP.I even hear Yahoo! Stores programmers converted LISP source code to C++ because they understood C++ much better than LISP. http://art2.ph-freiburg.de/Lisp-Course http://www.mars.cs.unp.ac.za/lisp/ http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/peterh/Tools/lisptutor.html http://www.lisp.org/alu/res-lisp-education http://computers.idoneos.com/index.php/Programming/Languages_%26_Tools/Lisp http://www.franz.com/newtolisp/index.lhtml http://www.cormanlisp.com/ I’ve gone through quite a few of the old 1980′s and earlier Lisp and Scheme textbooks like Touretzky,Winston,Wilensky,Tatar,Little Lisper,Little Schemer, etc. and since around 2001, tried several implementations like PowerLisp and X-Lisp. I also tried out the online ELM-ART tutor. Most of these will bore one to death with “basics” about atoms, CAR,CDR,S-expressions and matching parentheses before you ever get to how to print something to the screen.
So, I really liked the practical ‘roll-up-your sleeves-and-let’s-start-programming’ approach in Practical Common Lisp (PCL) and getting CLISP/Slime/Emacs up and running on a Windows OS was a breeze with LISPBOX. I also liked the modern practical projects in PCL. However, I strongly dislike the dated,1980′s, command line Slime/Emacs interface. The worksheet idea in PowerLisp on Mac OS seemed much better and easier to work with. But overall, one seems to be climbing a hill. PowerLisp (MAC OS) is now obsolete (Buy Corman Lisp) and TLISP source code from the 1980′s has to be converted to Common Lisp etc. and new languages like Python have all kinds of modern extensions and libraries that are hard to find for LISP.I even hear Yahoo! Stores programmers converted LISP source code to C++ because they understood C++ much better than LISP.

http://art2.ph-freiburg.de/Lisp-Course
http://www.mars.cs.unp.ac.za/lisp/
http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/peterh/Tools/lisptutor.html
http://www.lisp.org/alu/res-lisp-education
http://computers.idoneos.com/index.php/Programming/Languages_%26_Tools/Lisp
http://www.franz.com/newtolisp/index.lhtml
http://www.cormanlisp.com/

]]> By: Sara Bruce http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1350 Sara Bruce Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:12:31 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1350 Great!, Decent to be here.Superb work buddy. Great!,
Decent to be here.Superb work buddy.

]]> By: Rui http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1275 Rui Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:38:29 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1275 I think resources for beginners are a little complicated, specially because most of them (us) have a background related to C/C++ or Java (or something like those). Other negative aspect is not having a "standard" IDE "ready-to-code", of course there is Emacs but the fact is most of the people today don't have experience with it and it would difficult things. Cusp would be a great help, but it would be nice having more tutorials about it. So, to finish, I think it would be great creating some sort of community focused on writing quality tutorials/documents to help newcomers (as others too) learning Lisp. Anyone else feels it can/makes sense be created? I think resources for beginners are a little complicated, specially because most of them (us) have a background related to C/C++ or Java (or something like those). Other negative aspect is not having a “standard” IDE “ready-to-code”, of course there is Emacs but the fact is most of the people today don’t have experience with it and it would difficult things. Cusp would be a great help, but it would be nice having more tutorials about it.
So, to finish, I think it would be great creating some sort of community focused on writing quality tutorials/documents to help newcomers (as others too) learning Lisp. Anyone else feels it can/makes sense be created?

]]> By: memoire pour imprimantes http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1256 memoire pour imprimantes Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:01:33 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1256 Any place for readymade lisp program coding. Any place for readymade lisp program coding.

]]> By: Peter http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1184 Peter Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:32:27 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1184 -rino - Every common lisp implementation comes with a REPL where you can play around all you want without any IDE. Just fire it up and type (format t "Hello world!") and you're good to go. The IDE makes things like paren-matching, indenting, debugging, cross-referencing, etc easier but if you just want to play around I can see why you'd avoid emacs. I've not used them but I've heard good things about the Cusp plugin for Eclipse (http://bitfauna.com/projects/cusp/) and the ABLE editor (http://phil.nullable.eu/) -rino – Every common lisp implementation comes with a REPL where you can play around all you want without any IDE. Just fire it up and type (format t “Hello world!”) and you’re good to go. The IDE makes things like paren-matching, indenting, debugging, cross-referencing, etc easier but if you just want to play around I can see why you’d avoid emacs. I’ve not used them but I’ve heard good things about the Cusp plugin for Eclipse (http://bitfauna.com/projects/cusp/) and the ABLE editor (http://phil.nullable.eu/)

]]> By: rino http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1183 rino Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:54:15 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1183 i really hate editors that forces me to do keyboard calisthenics *coughEMACScough*. any Lisp interpreter out there? i think with the complexity of learning Lisp there ought to be an interpreter that will allow us to play with the language rather than learning how to use the IDE and the editor before being able to do a "hello world!". i really hate editors that forces me to do keyboard calisthenics *coughEMACScough*.

any Lisp interpreter out there? i think with the complexity of learning Lisp there ought to be an interpreter that will allow us to play with the language rather than learning how to use the IDE and the editor before being able to do a “hello world!”.

]]> By: Niels Olson http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1172 Niels Olson Thu, 21 May 2009 15:21:15 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1172 I'm on page 24 of the Little Schemer right now. I would say the first stumbling block is that most people are going to start with PLT Scheme or MIT Scheme, and the key to using ANY of the examples is the first footnote of the first example in the first chapter: you have to make sure to use the ==> ' <== notation. Pay attention to that. Because every example assumes your figured out that notational convention. There's a lot of this that I can skip over, but that screwed me up. I’m on page 24 of the Little Schemer right now. I would say the first stumbling block is that most people are going to start with PLT Scheme or MIT Scheme, and the key to using ANY of the examples is the first footnote of the first example in the first chapter: you have to make sure to use the ==> ‘ <== notation. Pay attention to that. Because every example assumes your figured out that notational convention. There’s a lot of this that I can skip over, but that screwed me up.

]]> By: John http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/comment-page-1/#comment-1171 John Tue, 05 May 2009 12:42:31 +0000 http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/how-to-learn-lisp/#comment-1171 I was looking at learning lisp and was thinking about using clojure as this would mean not having to re-learn lots of libraries. Also I code in eclipse anyway and there seems to be plenty of support for doing project euler using clojure. Can anyone enlighten me about advantages / disadvantages over using common lisp Thanks I was looking at learning lisp and was thinking about using clojure as this would mean not having to re-learn lots of libraries. Also I code in eclipse anyway and there seems to be plenty of support for doing project euler using clojure.

Can anyone enlighten me about advantages / disadvantages over using common lisp

Thanks

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