From: Company Mail
Subject: newbie seeks polite introduction to LISP
Date:
Message-ID: <34E09D93.8BE0C8F7@planet.dk>
Hello folks,
I am working in multimedia and have been programming in Lingo for some
time. I have pretty much got to the end of the learning curve and the
next step would appear to be towards a more "serious" language. Java is
the obvious choice and I do intend to put some effort in that direction.
I have already been through the code warrior Java tutorial.
'Problem is Java and especially C and C++ seem kind of clumsy (though
compact and ubiquitous), and do not really offer any of the interesting
dynamic features that I have got used to in Lingo like dynamic class
creation and swapping ancestors. I also really like to use a command
line interpreter so that I can get more inside the language as I learn
it and use it. Also, with avatars coming, I would like to get really
clued up about AI.
Right now the languages which seem to offer the most stimulating
possibilities are LISP, Smalltalk and Oberon. Oberon gets around the
command line interpreter thing by being able to "execute" any line of
text with a mouse click. Also it is "component oriented" which is the
future. Quite cool, but still you have to compile everything in advance.
A colleague of mine has been talking about LISP for a long time, and he
showed me the source of Abuse. I was struck by how strange it looked
with all those parentheses.. I've just been downloading a couple of
freeware/shareware LISPs for Mac and Windows (PowerLISP and NewLISP
respectively) and went through the great interactive LISP tutorial on
the web. I like the organic feel of LISP and think it would be really
ideal for avatar programming (which is just networked AI after all). It
would be great if I could have some advice for proceeding.
I like the PowerLISP, which BTW is running fine on a G3 (website only
mentions 603 and 604). I am not sure how standard the dialect is, but I
don't expect it matters much at my level. I have found some books at the
library, but they all seem kind of old. Does this matter? I understand
LISP was one of the first interpreted languages ever, contemporary with
ALGOL. Amazing that it has survived. It must be pretty special.
Is there some kind of tutorial (other than the interactive one) that I
can find on the net? Can anyone recommend a good introductory book,
considering I am familiar with Lingo's own brand of OO and list
processing (which is better than you might imagine)?. Every time I pick
up a book on C++ it either suggests I learn C first (arrgh! no! anything
but that! I'm a pathological OO programmer now!), or that I have never
done any programming at all. I hope that I can find an introduction to
LISP which will assume I know what a variable is.
Also I've seen references to this SK8 thing that Apple have developed.
It sounds very interesting, but all the links seem to be dead. Have
Apple dropped the whole thing or what? I'd still like to check it out if
someone can tell me where to find it.
Are there any other multimedia environments using LISP or some dialect
of it?
Hovering on the threshold and ready to put in the hours,
Brennan
--
__________________________________________________
The Planet
multimedia design studio
_____________________
Klerkegade 19, 4.
DK-1308 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Phone +45 33 93 00 20
Mobile +45 21 66 67 10
private mail: ···················@hotmail.com
Company site: http://www.planet.dk
Company mail: ···········@planet.dk
From: Martti Halminen
Subject: Re: newbie seeks polite introduction to LISP
Date:
Message-ID: <34E18A7E.47D8@dpe.fi>
Company Mail wrote:
> I like the PowerLISP, which BTW is running fine on a G3 (website only
> mentions 603 and 604). I am not sure how standard the dialect is, but I
> don't expect it matters much at my level. I have found some books at the
> library, but they all seem kind of old. Does this matter?
Generally, if the book claims to handle Common Lisp (instead of some
older dialect), it is new enough for a start. The newer editions tend to
be better, though (at least Winston&Horn: Lisp 3rd edition and Steele's
Common Lisp 2nd edition are distinctly preferable to the older ones).
I understand
> LISP was one of the first interpreted languages ever, contemporary with
> ALGOL. Amazing that it has survived. It must be pretty special.
>
> Is there some kind of tutorial (other than the interactive one) that I
> can find on the net? Can anyone recommend a good introductory book,
> considering I am familiar with Lingo's own brand of OO and list
> processing (which is better than you might imagine)?. Every time I pick
> up a book on C++ it either suggests I learn C first (arrgh! no! anything
> but that! I'm a pathological OO programmer now!), or that I have never
> done any programming at all. I hope that I can find an introduction to
> LISP which will assume I know what a variable is.
A lot of your questions would be answered by the The Association of
Lisp Users (ALU) web pages at
http://www.elwoodcorp.com/alu/
--
________________________________________________________________
^. Martti Halminen
/ \`. Design Power Europe Oy
/ \ `. Tekniikantie 12, FIN-02150 Espoo, Finland
/\`. \ | Tel:+358 9 4354 2306, Fax:+358 9 455 8575
/__\|___\| ······················@dpe.fi http://www.dpe.fi
Company Mail wrote:
> I am working in multimedia and have been programming in Lingo for some
> time. I have pretty much got to the end of the learning curve and the
> next step would appear to be towards a more "serious" language. Java is
> the obvious choice and I do intend to put some effort in that direction.
> I have already been through the code warrior Java tutorial.
>
> 'Problem is Java and especially C and C++ seem kind of clumsy (though
> compact and ubiquitous), and do not really offer any of the interesting
Java has a limited reflection protocol now.
It also has some capability for lamdas/inner methods, but they are not
totally complete.
> dynamic features that I have got used to in Lingo like dynamic class
> creation and swapping ancestors.
I've never used Lingo on a power-user level, is the "swapping ancestors"
thing anything like Smalltalk's become operation?
CLOS lets you make classes dynamically, and also redefine old ones,
including what superclasses they inherit from, and fixes up all
instances affected....
> I also really like to use a command
> line interpreter so that I can get more inside the language as I learn
> it and use it. Also, with avatars coming, I would like to get really
> clued up about AI.
ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/
has a lot of source code and stuff about artificial intelligence...
I have a feeling that a lot of the 'Avatar' work will be about giving
agents not just intelligence, but affect as well....
> Right now the languages which seem to offer the most stimulating
> possibilities are LISP, Smalltalk and Oberon. Oberon gets around the
> command line interpreter thing by being able to "execute" any line of
> text with a mouse click. Also it is "component oriented" which is the
> future.
What is "components" above and beyond modules?
> I found some books at the library, but they all seem kind of old.
> Does this matter?
I would probably say that books more than 20 years old are useful
primarily for historical background. Even the best books on Common Lisp
and CLOS are almost 10 years old.
> Is there some kind of tutorial (other than the interactive one) that I
> can find on the net? Can anyone recommend a good introductory book,
> considering I am familiar with Lingo's own brand of OO and list
> processing (which is better than you might imagine)?. Every time I pick
> up a book on C++ it either suggests I learn C first (arrgh! no! anything
> but that! I'm a pathological OO programmer now!), or that I have never
> done any programming at all. I hope that I can find an introduction to
> LISP which will assume I know what a variable is.
I can recommend
Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp:
A Programmer's Guide to CLOS
by Sonya E. Keene
Addison Wesley, Reading MA / Symbolics Press 1989
ISBN: 0-201-17589-4
It's short, and is all about OO. Common Lisp's Object System (CLOS) may
be considerably unlike what you've used before (like multimethods, the
dispatch, encapsulation shite, redefinition, accessors and slots, etc)
so you probably would find this useful. It doesn't say much about the
rest of Lisp, so you may find yourself wondering some things (like "What
the fsck is #'mapcar?") but you can find that out just about anywhere.
On the whole, Lisp has next to no syntax, so you quickly start to learn
complex combinations and abstractions. There are a lot of powerful
things you can do with functions that are first-class values, programs
that look like data, incremental compilers, destructuring macros, et
cetera.
> Also I've seen references to this SK8 thing that Apple have developed.
> It sounds very interesting, but all the links seem to be dead. Have
> Apple dropped the whole thing or what? I'd still like to check it out if
> someone can tell me where to find it.
The main sk8 page is
http://sk8.research.apple.com/sk8/sk8.html
The links you saw are broken because Apple closed its Cambridge, MA
branch a year or so ago. Anything in the cambridge.apple.com domain is
gone.
You can get sk8 at
http://sk8.research.apple.com/sk8/download2.html
You might also want to check out what the authoring environment looks
like.
http://sk8.research.apple.com/sk8/Editors.html
has some screenshots of the tools in the Project Editor.
In sk8, the Project Editor is itself a project, and indeed it can edit
itself. This is in the spirit of many Lisp-y things :-)
> Are there any other multimedia environments using LISP or some dialect
> of it?
you'd think there would be, but aside from the Agentsheets package
listed on the digitool site (http://www.digitool.com/resources.html)
I haven't seen any.
> Hovering on the threshold and ready to put in the hours,
btw, my email is mungXored...see below
--
f l u i d e s i g n
www.fluidesign.com
Nate Holloway, Technical director
natedogg at fluidesign dot com
From: Company Mail
Subject: Re: newbie seeks polite introduction to LISP
Date:
Message-ID: <34E30912.E02C4C28@planet.dk>
Hello again folks.
I have had a lot of great responses to my request and questions about
LISP. Thank you all. It's nice that so many people seem to have
recommended the same book (the ANSI one), so it sounds like the one to
go for. Thanks especially to Nate for the SK8 info. I'm going to go to
the urls straight away and see what I can find.
After a little digging through the practical basics and sweating with
the new mindset I will doubtless be back here with more (I hope not too
stupid) questions. Best wishes and thanks again!
Brennan
--
__________________________________________________
The Planet
multimedia design studio
_____________________
Klerkegade 19, 4.
DK-1308 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Phone +45 33 93 00 20
Mobile +45 21 66 67 10
private mail: ···················@hotmail.com
Company site: http://www.planet.dk
Company mail: ···········@planet.dk
I am also a newbie to LISP.
After trying to make LISP run under xwindows and emacs I gave up. And
searched for some Windows95 software that would run LISP.
You can also download a free version at.
http://www.franz.com/dload/offer.main.html
It is small, fast and easy. (unix folks look at the easy word!)
I saw this mail form a fellow Dane. (I'm a Dane myself)
It seams like we want to learn lisp just as every one else is giving up on
it.
I am reading the book LISP 3rd edition by Winston and Horn. I have 5
different books from the library, this was the best one. Later on I found a
LISP guru. He had this book too.
The above software also talks about a book.....
MS.EE @ ece.utexas.edu