Lisp links thread

adam · Post by **adam** » Wed May 09, 2007 10:40 pm 0

i keep running across lisp links so i'm going to stow them in here if thats ok

/champagne smashed against side of ship
/don't pretend to be an expert on this stuff, do like reading about it though

Wrapping code using compiler macros

http://exploring-lisp.blogspot.com/2007 ... os_08.html

adam · Post by **adam** » Wed May 09, 2007 11:54 pm 0

little timesaver:

http://programming.reddit.com/search?q=lisp

it's just like an rss feed

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Thu May 10, 2007 8:30 am 0

Does anyone have a "how to grok lisp" guide? I've been playing with it for several years on and off and still haven't reached that point where I want to abandon every other language and program in lisp for the rest of my life.

Practical reasons, please. I'm not a computer scientist and I wouldn't know symbolic elegance if it hit me in the teeth.

adam · Post by **adam** » Thu May 10, 2007 5:10 pm 0

i think the honest answer is... use whichever language suits the job at hand

if you haven't heard of paul graham, he's a big lisp evangelist... one of his big reasons for liking it is the macros... code that generates code

"on lisp" on his site is supposed to be the first book that explains macros really well, though it gets a bit too complex for me fairly quick

http://paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html

GoatFoam · Post by **GoatFoam** » Thu May 10, 2007 5:59 pm 0

teamonkey wrote:Does anyone have a "how to grok lisp" guide? I've been playing with it for several years on and off and still haven't reached that point where I want to abandon every other language and program in lisp for the rest of my life.

Practical reasons, please. I'm not a computer scientist and I wouldn't know symbolic elegance if it hit me in the teeth.

"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson & Sussman is worth a look.

It concentrates on scheme, which is a simple lisp dialect. Used to be the standard teaching language at MIT I think.

ppr · Post by **ppr** » Thu May 10, 2007 6:49 pm 0

lisp
the big ones

http://www.franz.com
http://www.lispworks.com

win only
http://www.cormanlisp.com/

book
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/index.html

sicp
book
http://deptinfo.unice.fr/~roy/sicp.pdf

plt scheme
http://www.plt-scheme.org/

lectures
http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.00 ... -lectures/

ppr

l1n3n01z · Post by **l1n3n01z** » Thu May 10, 2007 7:02 pm 0

GoatFoam wrote:
teamonkey wrote:Does anyone have a "how to grok lisp" guide? I've been playing with it for several years on and off and still haven't reached that point where I want to abandon every other language and program in lisp for the rest of my life.

Practical reasons, please. I'm not a computer scientist and I wouldn't know symbolic elegance if it hit me in the teeth.
"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson & Sussman is worth a look.

It concentrates on scheme, which is a simple lisp dialect. Used to be the standard teaching language at MIT I think.

Available online even:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html
Also a very good one, though not available online is The Little Schemer et al.

Also good one is Practical Common Lisp. It's practical :-)

l1n3n01z · Post by **l1n3n01z** » Thu May 10, 2007 7:03 pm 0

ppr wrote: lectures
http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.00 ... -lectures/

Good call

adam · Post by **adam** » Thu May 10, 2007 9:43 pm 0

i think mit have switched that course to python now after requests from students

i read that they used to introduce the whole of scheme in 1 or 2 lectures, in at the deep end by the sounds

GoatFoam · Post by **GoatFoam** » Fri May 11, 2007 9:13 am 0

adam wrote: i read that they used to introduce the whole of scheme in 1 or 2 lectures, in at the deep end by the sounds ;-)

Not really. One of the nice things about scheme is that there really isn't much of it to learn. You can get the language out of the way in a couple of hours and start concentrating on your algorithms.

I can't say I'm a big fan of the syntax, but it is certainly simple.

adam · Post by **adam** » Fri May 11, 2007 10:31 am 0

from what someone online said, it sounds like the first semester of the mit cs course is (or was) designed to be really really hard to weed out all but the most committed geeks

i think the intro to scheme is maybe one 2 hour lecture then it's seriously- - right off you go

Al · Post by Al » Fri May 11, 2007 11:24 am 0

lis0r · Post by **lis0r** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:52 pm 0

teamonkey wrote:Practical reasons, please. I'm not a computer scientist and I wouldn't know symbolic elegance if it hit me in the teeth.

And this is why you'll never grok lisp

teamonkey · Post by **teamonkey** » Fri May 11, 2007 4:33 pm 0

lis0r wrote:
teamonkey wrote:Practical reasons, please. I'm not a computer scientist and I wouldn't know symbolic elegance if it hit me in the teeth.
And this is why you'll never grok lisp

lis0r · Post by **lis0r** » Fri May 11, 2007 4:49 pm 0

teamonkey wrote:
lis0r wrote:And this is why you'll never grok lisp

It's unfortauntely true - lip is like the polar opposite of assembler.

Assembler throws away all the theory, and gets down to the nitty gritty, practical real-world side of things.

Lisp throws away all the practicality, most links with the real world, and concentrates on the theoretical basis of computation.

And the xkcd strip is only half a joke - to the hardened CompSci, it does sometimes feel that lisp is the language you'd implement reality in.