From: Heinola Kari Pekka
Subject: Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Date: 
Message-ID: <HEINOLA.91Aug28105457@malla.ee.tut.fi>
Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".
I saw that title in Digital press 1991 catalog.


--
Kari Heinola  
Internet: ·······@ee.tut.fi
TTKK/Mittaustekn. PL 527 SF-33101 Tampere Finland
Tel: 358-(9)31-162455

From: Marty Hall
Subject: Re: Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Date: 
Message-ID: <1991Aug28.143301.6061@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
In article <·····················@malla.ee.tut.fi> ·······@malla.ee.tut.fi 
(Heinola Kari Pekka) writes:
>
>Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".
>I saw that title in Digital press 1991 catalog.

Be aware of what *type* of book it is. It is not a LISP tutorial, teaching
beginners how to program in LISP like Winston and Horn (_LISP_, 3rd ed), 
Tatar (_A Programmer's Guide to CL_), Touretzky (_CL: A Gentle Into. to
Symbolic Computation_), Wilensky (_Common LISPcraft_), or Kessler (_LISP,
Objects, and Symbolic Computation_). Neither is it an advanced AI applications
text. For that I would recommed Norvig (_Paradigms of AI Programming_, out in
Oct) or others use Hasemer and Domingue (_CL Programming for AI_) or
Charniak, et al (_AI Programming_).

Instead, it is a short (150 pages plus 50 pages of appendices, index, etc) 
book for people familiar with Common LISP that gives suggestions on most 
appropriate constructs, programming style, commenting, debugging, a few
efficiency issues, and general organization. There is a running example,
called the Personal Planner, that provides illustrations throughout the
text. Note that several CLtL/2 constructs, most notably the loop macro and
CLOS are included in these discussions. I personally found several of the
suggestions useful, but found many to be non-helpful, at least for the
types of applications I do and the background that I have. My guess is that
I would have appreciated it more a couple of years ago. The authors are
from Lucid, and as such have experience both in teaching LISP and using it
in real applications.
					- Marty Hall

------------------------------------------------------
····@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu, ···········@jhunix.bitnet, ..uunet!aplcen!hall
Artificial Intelligence Lab, AAI Corp, PO Box 126, Hunt Valley, MD 21030

(setf (need-p 'disclaimer) NIL)
From: Barry Margolin
Subject: Re: Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Date: 
Message-ID: <1991Aug28.205127.715@Think.COM>
In article <·····················@malla.ee.tut.fi> ·······@malla.ee.tut.fi (Heinola Kari Pekka) writes:
>Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".

I generally agree with Marty Hall's description and assessment.  However, I
would like to say that I thought the book was very good for what it tries
to do.  I agreed with many of their stylistic suggestions, and I don't
recall finding any of them outrightly "wrong".  I would be quite surprised
if any single programmer agreed with all the stylistic viewpoints of any
other, especially in a language as rich as Common Lisp.  But you could do
much worse than follow the guidelines in that book.  It's certainly a good
basis from which to develop your own personal style.

-- 
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

······@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
From: Jeff Dalton
Subject: Re: Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Date: 
Message-ID: <5292@skye.ed.ac.uk>
>>Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".

Fairly expensive.  Good style and design advice for writing up to
medium-sized Lisp programs.  Doesn't (so far as I can recall) tell
you what to do when you're doing such things writing systems that
involve several packages.
From: Eric Benson
Subject: Re: Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Date: 
Message-ID: <EB.91Sep19125311@watergate.lucid.com>
In article <····@skye.ed.ac.uk> ····@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) wrote:
>>>Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".
> Fairly expensive.  Good style and design advice for writing up to
> medium-sized Lisp programs.  Doesn't (so far as I can recall) tell
> you what to do when you're doing such things writing systems that
> involve several packages.

Expensive, yes, but well worth the price!  Seriously, I don't think
it's any more expensive than comparable books, at least here in the
states.  Perhaps there is more of a premium in Europe.
From: Mikel Evins
Subject: Re: Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Date: 
Message-ID: <57599@apple.Apple.COM>
In article <················@watergate.lucid.com> ··@lucid.com (Eric Benson) writes:
>
>Expensive, yes, but well worth the price!  Seriously, I don't think
>it's any more expensive than comparable books, at least here in the
>states.  Perhaps there is more of a premium in Europe.

Looking at it with the eye of the general
book-buying public, I would have expected to
pay maybe $12.95 for it. In fact I paid more
like $30.

However, I am close enough to the technical
publishing field that I'm aware that several
factors contribute to its being more expensive
than I would expect a normal trade paperback
to be.

It is a technical book, and thus serves a
smaller readership than a general interest book.
In fact, as a Lisp style book, its readership is
even smaller than the run-of-the-mill
computer book. The publisher probably
doesn't expect to sell a lot of copies, and
so prices the book higher than it otherwise
would.

For comparison, take a look at the prices on 
Springer's books. Even their slimmest volumes
usually carry a hefty price tag, again because
they tend to publish books that cover
fairly specialized areas.