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How do I learned LISP?

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 1:43

Yes, I know there is a lisp thread already, but it's filled entirely with faggots spamming LISP LISP LISP. I don't expect to find anything useful there.

I want to learn Common Lisp. What is the best freely available guide for doing this? Thanks, /prog/.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:02

Read SICP.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:14

>>2

Isn't that SCHEME?

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:25

>>3
Scheme ⊆ LISP

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:31

>>1
I'm currently learning it too.

I'm happy with this setup:

1)Get Emacs + SBCL (or/and CLISP) +SLIME
2)Read PG's ANSI Common LISP

I've tried doing it before, but it was a bit hard to learn properly without a good environment, SLIME really helped.

My current thoughts on it: wonderful language, however it is somewhat big, if that troubles you, just learn Scheme by reading SICP.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:37

>>1
If you can't buy or somehow else get a copy of ANSI Common LISP, there are some other freely available resource such as Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel and PG's other book On Lisp. On Lisp deals more with macros, so I don't think if it's good to be the first book one reads. Others also suggest PAIP as an alternative to ACL, or if you feel like reading a complete description of the language, read Common Lisp the Language 2(freely available too), it's less terse than the Hyperspec(which you should also get so you could look things up).

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:43

I learned Common Lisp by working through Practical Common Lisp, which is available online. Of course, I had already been introduced to the concepts of Lisp by learning Scheme. Having done both, I don't think learning CL first would have been productive in the slightest, because there's so much noise in CL getting in the way of the parts that are actually different from the imperative shit.

tldr: Read your SICP

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:47

>>3
Scheme is a dialect of Lisp, even though it doesn't have "Lisp" in the name like most other dialects. The differences between Scheme and Common Lisp (the other popular dialect before Clojure was invented) are easier to learn than the differences between Lisp in general and imperative languages in general.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 2:55

>>1
What >>6 says is probably correct. I've been introduced to functional programming by SICP. If you're not familiar with using recursion and coding without having state, learning CL directly might be a bit hard. CL lets you progam in any style you want, but functional style is still one of the most natural styles to use in CL, however nothing prevents you from using an imperative style, and it might even be a good idea to use it in some cases (for performance or even for clarity reasons).

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 4:08

>>1
That depends on what you know. Since you want to learn CL specifically, I assume you already have some programming experience, in which case Practical Common Lisp is the book for you. If you're new to programming, A Gentle Introduction To Symbolic Computation might be a better choice. Google will find you both online.

Some suggest that Scheme is a better intro to Lisp, but I disagree. Lisp is as imperative as it is functional. It's got five magnificent looping constructs for a reason (and Iterate and Series lurking on the web). IMO, if you're writing your iteration recursively in Common Lisp, you're fucking around because you like it, not because it's encouraged by or helpful in the language. Starting with Scheme is going to get its weirdness mixed in with your notion of how to Lisp productively.

IMO, coming to grips with macros (when to use them and when not to use them) and CL's other powerful features (such as the condition system and CLOS) is at least as important as programming in a functional style. One of the great things about Lisp is that you don't need to write a function to return a value. A conditional, a loop, or a progn will do as well. The important thing is that you learn to write programs declaratively and develop helpful abstractions to do it.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 6:20

SICP is not about Scheme.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 12:52

LISP is how to write C in Scheme.

Name: Anonymous 2009-07-06 13:06

>>11
SICP is about Scheme.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 0:44

Lain.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 0:44

Lain.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 0:45

Lain.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 0:45

Lain.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 1:04

lisp is scheme with a shitton of ##############################################################################3

So learn scheme first if you care. "Teach yourself scheme in fixnum days" then waltz on over and download the SICP lectures. It'll change your life, man. Change. Your. Life.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 1:34

Lain.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 1:35

Lain.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 2:57

>>18

   lisp is scheme with a shitton of
#################################

Scheme IS a lisp.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 3:48

>>21
Some people sure like making a big fuss over the function and value namespaces without understanding the trade-off's involved, not to mention not understanding macro characters: # is absolutely not required, but it will shorten a lot of the code if you use it. After READ time, macro characters are expanded into real code.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 14:06

>>18
#################################
Is that Haskell?

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 14:15

>>21
>lisp is scheme
>scheme IS a lisp
whoa

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 14:29

>>1
OP you learn a real language instead of some academic curiosity.

Name: Anonymous 2009-09-19 14:40

>>26
If you think about it, C++ is an academic curiosity. Or rather, how anyone could waste their time using it should be under intense study.

Name: Anonymous 2010-12-21 5:24

Don't change these.
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