From: Mario Frasca
Subject: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <slrn8trpfn.50c.mario@tamino.cs.uu.nl>
hi everybody,

I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.  All I found
was a massive and boring language reference and some extremely
enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian it means
'happy', I'm not)

I have here on my desk that ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham, which is
not a bad book, but inspiring, no, definitely not.

Any suggestions?

thanks in advance,
Mario Frasca

From: Espen Vestre
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <w6bswy6mn4.fsf@wallace.ws.nextra.no>
·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) writes:

> Any suggestions?

Peter Norvigs 'Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming'
was very inspiring to me, but YMMV, of course.
-- 
  (espen)
From: Jeff Sandys
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <39E2348A.77F9D7C2@asme.org>
Espen Vestre wrote:
> 
> ·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) writes:
> 
> > Any suggestions?
> 
> Peter Norvigs 'Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming'
> was very inspiring to me, but YMMV, of course.
> --
>   (espen)

This is my favorite, currently $29 from the publisher:
http://www.mkp.com/overstock
From: Mario Lang
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87vgv0ad55.fsf@home.delysid.org>
Jeff Sandys <·······@asme.org> writes:

> Espen Vestre wrote:
> > 
> > ·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) writes:
> > 
> > > Any suggestions?
> > 
> > Peter Norvigs 'Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming'
> > was very inspiring to me, but YMMV, of course.
> > --
> >   (espen)
> 
> This is my favorite, currently $29 from the publisher:
> http://www.mkp.com/overstock
Do you know if the book is available in digital form?
Or if the publisher probably will give it away in a digital form. I am blind, and I am not
really willing to scan an programming book...


-- 
CYa,
   Mario <·····@delysid.org>
Homepage(s): http://delysid.org | http://piss.at/

if (instr(buf,sys_errlist[errno]))  /* you don't see this */
             -- Larry Wall in eval.c from the perl source code
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-0B033E.18234910102000@news.is-europe.net>
In article <··············@home.delysid.org>, Mario Lang 
<·····@home.delysid.org> wrote:

> Jeff Sandys <·······@asme.org> writes:
> 
> > Espen Vestre wrote:
> > > 
> > > ·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) writes:
> > > 
> > > > Any suggestions?
> > > 
> > > Peter Norvigs 'Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming'
> > > was very inspiring to me, but YMMV, of course.
> > > --
> > >   (espen)
> > 
> > This is my favorite, currently $29 from the publisher:
> > http://www.mkp.com/overstock
> Do you know if the book is available in digital form?
> Or if the publisher probably will give it away in a digital form. I am blind, and I am not
> really willing to scan an programming book...

The book is not available in digital form, AFAIK. But the sources from
the book are. Actually the book is really good - it also has
a lot of pages: 946. If somebody is seriously looking into Lisp
programming, this is an excellent choice.

-- 
Rainer Joswig, Hamburg, Germany
Email: ·············@corporate-world.lisp.de
Web: http://corporate-world.lisp.de/
From: Marc Hoffmann
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <39DDE96C.64AD32D0@ing.sun.ac.za>
Try to read:

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programms by Abelson and Sussman,
Mit Press.
This is one of the most inspiring books i can think of.


Mario Frasca wrote:

> hi everybody,
>
> I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
> like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.  All I found
> was a massive and boring language reference and some extremely
> enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian it means
> 'happy', I'm not)
>
> I have here on my desk that ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham, which is
> not a bad book, but inspiring, no, definitely not.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> thanks in advance,
> Mario Frasca
From: Pierre R. Mai
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <87bswxn9tp.fsf@orion.bln.pmsf.de>
·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) writes:

> hi everybody,
> 
> I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
> like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.  All I found
> was a massive and boring language reference and some extremely

Neither ClTL2 nor the HyperSpec are boring, IMHO.  Reading them
carefully (including the issues that are included in the HyperSpec)
can often give you great insight into the language, and should
therefore be inspiring...  This is in contrast to some other
standards...

> enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian it means
> 'happy', I'm not)
> 
> I have here on my desk that ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham, which is
> not a bad book, but inspiring, no, definitely not.

The following list of books is a small subset of those that any
serious CL programmer should posses, some of them are very inspiring:

* Keene, Sonya E.: Object Oriented Programming in Common Lisp
  - A Programmers Guide to the Common Lisp Object System (24h)
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201175894/
  http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201175894/

* Kiczales, Gregor et al: The Art of the Metaobject Protocol (2-3 days)
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262610744/
  http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262610744/

* Graham, Paul: On Lisp (1-2 weeks)
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130305529/
  http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130305529/

For a more complete list of books on Lisp in general and CL in
particular, take a look at http://www.lisp.org/ .  Reading in the
archives of comp.lang.lisp can also give you valuable insights.

Regs, Pierre.

-- 
Pierre R. Mai <····@acm.org>                    http://www.pmsf.de/pmai/
 The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree,
 is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals.
 We cause accidents.                           -- Nathaniel Borenstein
From: Paolo Amoroso
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <PwDeOcjYYC5EJHsUg8nqddk3PRBd@4ax.com>
On 6 Oct 2000 14:47:19 GMT, ·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) wrote:

> I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
> like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.  All I found
> was a massive and boring language reference and some extremely
> enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian it means
> 'happy', I'm not)

Does your favorite C++ compiler ship with Stroustroup's, Ellis' or
Coplien's books?


> Any suggestions?

Here is a good start:

  "Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp"
  Peter Norvig
  Morgan Kaufmann

  "On Lisp - Advanced Techniques for Common Lisp"
  Paul Graham
  Prentice Hall

  "The Art of the Metaobject Protocol"
  Gregor Kiczales, Jim Des Rivi�res, Daniel G Bobrow
  MIT Press

The following are not strictly Lisp-related, but they probably qualify as
inspiring:

  "Patterns of Software - Tales from the Software Community"
  Richard P. Gabriel
  Oxford University Press

  "Open Implementations and Metaobject Protocols"

http://www.parc.xerox.com/spl/groups/eca/pubs/papers/Kiczales-TUT95/for-web.pdf

Have (de)fun,


Paolo
-- 
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/
From: Erik Naggum
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <3179836737616149@naggum.net>
* Mario Frasca
| I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
| like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.

  Hm.  I have read all of those, and didn't find them inspiring.  I
  associate C++ with the kind of S&M that comes after the safeword.

| All I found was a massive and boring language reference and some
| extremely enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian
| it means 'happy', I'm not)

  I have read the entire manual and keep tracking changes to it.
  While sometimes repetitive instead of linking to a common
  discussion, it has the dry, crisp nature of scientific material
  where you're supposed to let your own intelligence produce the
  marvels.  Some people can't handle this at all.

| I have here on my desk that ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham, which
| is not a bad book, but inspiring, no, definitely not.

  I agree, and I didn't like the plot, either.  Also, the character
  development was totally lacking.

  But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
  2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
  especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
  as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
  and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.

#:Erik
-- 
  If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.
From: Christophe Rhodes
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <sq1yxtwndw.fsf@lambda.jesus.cam.ac.uk>
Erik Naggum <····@naggum.net> writes:

>   But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
>   2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
>   especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
>   as Michelangelo.  

Yes! I was particularly impressed with "Row, row, row your boat".

I strongly recommend CLtL2; it is a good read, and it shows
considerable forethought.

Christophe
-- 
Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL                           +44 1223 524 842
(FORMAT T "(·@{~w ········@{~w~^ ~})" 'FORMAT T "(·@{~w ········@{~w~^ ~})")
From: Christopher Browne
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <slrn8tsql6.5j3.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org>
In our last episode (06 Oct 2000 15:58:57 +0000),
the artist formerly known as Erik Naggum said:
>  But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
>  2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
>  especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
>  as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
>  and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.

They were probably either too old or too young to appreciate the
Turtles.  Actually, the book is old enough that it has got to be
getting the TMNT stuff from the original comic books; I _think_ it
predates the TV/Movie connections...

[The really frightening thing here is that I knew straight off what you
were talking about without actually referring to the index...]
-- 
········@hex.net - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
Rules of the Evil Overlord #106. "If my supreme command center comes
under attack, I will immediately flee to safety in my prepared escape
pod and direct the defenses from there. I will not wait until the
troops break into my inner sanctum to attempt this."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
From: Erik Naggum
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <3179896241983365@naggum.net>
* Christopher Browne
| They were probably either too old or too young to appreciate the
| Turtles.

  Please look up Michelangelo in the index.  Hint: not Michaelangelo.

| [The really frightening thing here is that I knew straight off what
| you were talking about without actually referring to the index...]

  Sorry to burst your bubble.

#:Erik
-- 
  If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-BB2DFA.08015507102000@news.is-europe.net>
In article <·······················@knuth.brownes.org>, 
········@hex.net wrote:

> In our last episode (06 Oct 2000 15:58:57 +0000),
> the artist formerly known as Erik Naggum said:
> >  But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
> >  2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
> >  especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
> >  as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
> >  and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.
> 
> They were probably either too old or too young to appreciate the
> Turtles.  Actually, the book is old enough that it has got to be
> getting the TMNT stuff from the original comic books; I _think_ it
> predates the TV/Movie connections...
> 
> [The really frightening thing here is that I knew straight off what you
> were talking about without actually referring to the index...]

Sure? Lookup "Michelangelo (the artist)" and look at the page numbers. ;-)

-- 
Rainer Joswig, Hamburg, Germany
Email: ·············@corporate-world.lisp.de
Web: http://corporate-world.lisp.de/
From: Frank Goenninger
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <39E0A8C5.5E08325F@hp.com>
Hey - that was a new one to me. I did lookup Michelangelo AND THEN
decided to read the Index as a separate chapter with own content...

So you see: it _is_ worth reading CLtL2.

Regards,
   Frank

Rainer Joswig wrote:
> 
> In article <·······················@knuth.brownes.org>,
> ········@hex.net wrote:
> 
> > In our last episode (06 Oct 2000 15:58:57 +0000),
> > the artist formerly known as Erik Naggum said:
> > >  But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
> > >  2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
> > >  especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
> > >  as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
> > >  and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.
> >
> > They were probably either too old or too young to appreciate the
> > Turtles.  Actually, the book is old enough that it has got to be
> > getting the TMNT stuff from the original comic books; I _think_ it
> > predates the TV/Movie connections...
> >
> > [The really frightening thing here is that I knew straight off what you
> > were talking about without actually referring to the index...]
> 
> Sure? Lookup "Michelangelo (the artist)" and look at the page numbers. ;-)
> 
> --
> Rainer Joswig, Hamburg, Germany
> Email: ·············@corporate-world.lisp.de
> Web: http://corporate-world.lisp.de/
From: Andreas Eder
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <m37l7jcmhj.fsf@elgin.eder.de>
Erik Naggum <····@naggum.net> writes:

>   But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
>   2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
>   especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
>   as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
>   and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.

If you have to explain it, it is no wonder they didn't enjoy it. There
really are only to kinds of people - the ones that get it and the
ones that don't.  :-) 
I'm not sure if this can be a sign of something deeper, connected to
the lambda nature.

Andreas

-- 
Wherever I lay my .emacs, there�s my $HOME.
From: Donald Fisk
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <39E127FD.D10818D6@enterprise.net>
Erik Naggum wrote:

>   But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
>   2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
>   especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
>   as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
>   and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.

Ninja turtles IIRC?   I don't actually own a copy of CLTL2, and I
resisted
stealing one.

I particularly liked the lengthened version of the palindrome "a man,
a plan, a canal -- Panama!" with the words

... a banana bag ... a banana bag again (or a camel) ...

buried inside it.   The index has some strange entries, e.g. "disco
dancers" to describe the appearance of IIRC the tan function.

> #:Erik

-- 
Le Hibou
With regard to Mr Blair's "gut British instinct" --
would that be the same British gut, with "pussy-
hunter" tattooed on it, we saw being repatriated
from Charleroi recently? -- Peter Kenvyn Jones
From: Erik Naggum
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <3180133947979873@naggum.net>
* Erik Naggum wrote:
| But seriously, I still find Guy Steele's Common Lisp the Language,
| 2nd edition, to be a very inspiring book.  The humor is just great,
| especially if you sit down with the index and look up such entries
| as Michelangelo.  On the other hand, some people I have shown this to
| and explained it to their blank stare, still wouldn't even enjoy it.

* Donald Fisk
| Ninja turtles IIRC?

  That would be Michaelangelo, although entertaining, not _inspired_.

  The aversion to actually go look this up is not inspiring me much,
  but I'll try again.  Look up (as in: get the book) "kludges".

#:Erik
-- 
  If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.
From: Fernando Rodr�guez
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <qgttts45nl8bsh545bdi5koodb3uf274re@4ax.com>
On 6 Oct 2000 14:47:19 GMT, ·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) wrote:


>I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
>like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.  All I found
>was a massive and boring language reference and some extremely
>enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian it means
>'happy', I'm not)
>
>I have here on my desk that ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham, which is
>not a bad book, but inspiring, no, definitely not.

	Well, I was going to recommend you that specific book, but it
seems that we have different tastes (I love that book).  Let me
see...try these: On Lisp and The Art of the Metaobject protocol.  Both
will show you powerful techniques that are impossible with C++.







//-----------------------------------------------
//	Fernando Rodriguez Romero
//
//	frr at mindless dot com
//------------------------------------------------
From: Christopher Browne
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <slrn8tsqcg.5h1.cbbrowne@knuth.brownes.org>
In our last episode (6 Oct 2000 14:47:19 GMT),
the artist formerly known as Mario Frasca said:
>hi everybody,
>
>I came to Lisp from C++, and I miss a lot those most inspiring books
>like the ones written by Stroustroup, Ellis and Coplien.  All I found
>was a massive and boring language reference and some extremely
>enervating users manuals coming from Allegro (in Italian it means
>'happy', I'm not)
>
>I have here on my desk that ANSI Common Lisp from Paul Graham, which is
>not a bad book, but inspiring, no, definitely not.
>
>Any suggestions?

a) CLTL2 by Guy Steele; it's one of the few books where it is entertaining
to read the _index_ and look for the jokes;

b) SICP, on Scheme; this is an exceptional introduction to computer
science;

c) PAIP, by Peter Norvig, is quite exceptional, providing substantial
examples of artificial intelligence problems coded in CL.
-- 
········@ntlug.org - <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/>
State opinions in the syntax of fact: "...as well as the bug in LMFS
where you have to expunge directories to get rid of files....."
-- from the Symbolics Guidelines for Sending Mail
From: Mario Frasca
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <slrn8u34ev.66j.mario@tamino.cs.uu.nl>
thanks to anyone who came with suggestions, I appreciated
all of them.  I selected -as a start- the two 'On Lisp' and 'PAIP',
maybe I'll have a look at the index of the paper edition of
CLtL (I only consulted the online one).

and no, my favourite C++ compiler did not come with any book, but it
did contain a manpage about each library function.

there was a way to connect emacs to the hyperspec, but I forgot...

ciao,
Mario
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: any inspiring literature?
Date: 
Message-ID: <y6cog0ukq0t.fsf@octagon.mrl.nyu.edu>
·····@cs.uu.nl (Mario Frasca) writes:

> thanks to anyone who came with suggestions, I appreciated
> all of them.  I selected -as a start- the two 'On Lisp' and 'PAIP',
> maybe I'll have a look at the index of the paper edition of
> CLtL (I only consulted the online one).
> 
> and no, my favourite C++ compiler did not come with any book, but it
> did contain a manpage about each library function.
> 
> there was a way to connect emacs to the hyperspec, but I forgot...

http://ilisp.cons.org

Cheers

-- 
Marco Antoniotti =============================================================
NYU Bioinformatics Group			 tel. +1 - 212 - 998 3488
719 Broadway 12th Floor                          fax  +1 - 212 - 995 4122
New York, NY 10003, USA				 http://galt.mrl.nyu.edu/valis
             Like DNA, such a language [Lisp] does not go out of style.
			      Paul Graham, ANSI Common Lisp