From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <m3lls0zoty.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured I'd
post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere (e.g. #lisp
or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it there, here's it
is.)
I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
The chapters are the ones at:
<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>
marked with "Ready for review, 2003-10-02", specifically:
<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-a-once-and-future-history-of-lisp.html>
<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lather-rinse-repeat-a-tour-of-the-repl.html>
<http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/mini-practical-a-simple-database.html>
There are other chapters there on the web in various stages of
development--feel free to read anything you want but be aware that
things I haven't marked as being ready for review might change
radically at any point. Also there are no guarantees that I've even
run a spell checker over some of those chapters, let alone gone over
them with a red pen looking for typos. I happen to be horrendous at
it's/its (not because I don't know which is correct but because I just
don't type the right one--it's some problem in my brain and its
connection to my fingers) so you don't really need to point out every
place I got that wrong.
As always, comments, questions, and flames are all welcome. Feel free
to use the address book AT gigamonkeys DOT com if you want to help me
keep my mail sorted out.
-Peter
P.S. Please don't post these urls elsewhere--I'm putting these on the
web for friends-and-family review--with the denizens of c.l.l. being
at least presumptive friends--not for publicity. Thanks.
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Peter Seibel wrote:
> Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured I'd
> post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere (e.g. #lisp
> or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it there, here's it
> is.)
>
> I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
> for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
> really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
> they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
> I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
>
> The chapters are the ones at:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>
>
> marked with "Ready for review, 2003-10-02", specifically:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-a-once-and-future-history-of-lisp.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lather-rinse-repeat-a-tour-of-the-repl.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/mini-practical-a-simple-database.html>
Looks great. This is a welcome development indeed. I like the way you
dive straight into the DB example instead of laying three chapters of
datatypes, control structures, and the subtleties of cons.
Randome stuff: I usually see John Foderaro cited on the "programmable
programming language" quote.
Also, you talk about the ANSI spec being a contract between the vendor
and the user. Loosely speaking, absolutely. Strictly speaking, you might
want to warn your readers not to fall over dead because, say, CLisp
decided to go its own way on the :include option to defstruct. They
certainly should not expect to get their money back. :) I am probably
cutting it too fine on this one.
Thx for a nice contrib to Lisp.
kenny
On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 21:17:52 GMT, Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote:
> I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
> for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
> really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
> they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
> I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
i really like them. The mentioning of practical software that is to be
developed in the book already makes a beginner read on, i think.
Chapter 3 is very good. It would be just boring starting with syntax
rules. The way of giving some practical examples first reminds me of the
Ruby Pickaxe book [1], in which a Jukebox is being developed in the first
chapters. But actually the Pickaxe does not go as far as you do in the
third chapter. I think it makes an interesting start. :)
Rene
[1] http://www.rubycentral.com/book/
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote in message news:<··············@javamonkey.com>...
> Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured I'd
> post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere (e.g. #lisp
> or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it there, here's it
> is.)
>
> I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
> for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
> really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
> they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
> I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
[...]
Thank you.
The tone and pacing of the book seem very good to me. However, if you
intend to translate the book, i have a feeling that the tone wouldn't
port that well to, say, French. While I am used to a less formal tone
in English, the same tone in French will often leave me feeling like
that author is patronizing his readers.
There seems to be a bit of Lisp advocacy by putting down other
languages, which i'm not sure is appropriate. You might want to say,
for instance, "Common Lisp sports [...] a very complete exception
system [...]" instead of "Common Lisp sports [...] a condition system
that beats the pants off Java's and Python's exception systems[...]",
especially when you do not seem to back what you are advancing. If you
truly believe that it is important to show how complete Cl is, when
compared to languages like Python and Java, then why not do so, in a
well-structured and well-documented way, in an appendix (where such
things belong, imho)?
I see that you want to convert others to Lisp. I can agree with this
goal, but i don't think that denigrating other languages (yes, you are
more subtle than this:) is what will make Lisp more popular. Why not
simply present Lisp for what it is? Since your target audience is
programmers, i think your approach is already pretty good: jump to the
meat of the subject matter ASAP, and stay relatively conventional at
first (no clever trick, etc). That way, the reader isn't bored before
you have the chance to get him hooked, and can also easily compare
himself the Lisp code and what he would have written in his language
of choice.
Also, in chapter 3, under the subtitle /Adding records more
efficiently/, you present this snippet:
(defun prompt-read (prompt)
(format *query-io* "~a: " prompt)
(read-line *query-io*))
Why do you use *query-io* instead of
*standard-output*/*standard-input* (t) ? This point isn't addressed in
any way in chapter 3. Most programmers (in most languages) would
simply use stdio for this. I understand that this might be because you
could, for some unknown reason, want to have the interaction be
redirected to another stream, but it's not obvious.
Paul
··········@pvk.ca (pkhuong) wrote in message news:<···························@posting.google.com>...
> There seems to be a bit of Lisp advocacy by putting down other
> languages, which i'm not sure is appropriate. You might want to say,
> for instance, "Common Lisp sports [...] a very complete exception
> system [...]" instead of "Common Lisp sports [...] a condition system
> that beats the pants off Java's and Python's exception systems[...]",
> especially when you do not seem to back what you are advancing.
> (...)
> I see that you want to convert others to Lisp. I can agree with this
> goal, but i don't think that denigrating other languages (yes, you are
> more subtle than this:) is what will make Lisp more popular.
I agree. I think one of the best way of advocating Lisp is to use
reverse psychology, thus bypassing the mental filtering most people
get when hearing Lisp-Wheenie-style advocacy.
For instance, Paul Graham says: "But I don't expect to convince anyone
(over 25) to go out and learn Lisp." While this superficially looks
like "Don't learn Lisp, it's too much trouble when you are old." it's
really a teaser, taunting people into learning Lisp, or otherwise
feeling old.
Likewise, he also says: "[...] the greatest danger of Lisp is that it
may spoil you. Once you've used Lisp for a while, you become so
sensitive to the fit between language and application that you won't
be able to go back to another language without always feeling that it
doesn't give you quite the flexibility you need." This looks like
"learning Lisp is hazardous to your health" on the surface, but is
actually saying "Lisp is so flexible and integrated, that once you
have tried it, you won't want anything else."
So don't explicitly say how great Lisp is, but try to sneak this
implicitly into the text.
Sebastian Stern
Sebastian Stern wrote:
> ··········@pvk.ca (pkhuong) wrote in message news:<···························@posting.google.com>...
>
>>There seems to be a bit of Lisp advocacy by putting down other
>>languages, which i'm not sure is appropriate. You might want to say,
>>for instance, "Common Lisp sports [...] a very complete exception
>>system [...]" instead of "Common Lisp sports [...] a condition system
>>that beats the pants off Java's and Python's exception systems[...]",
>>especially when you do not seem to back what you are advancing.
>> (...)
>>I see that you want to convert others to Lisp. I can agree with this
>>goal, but i don't think that denigrating other languages (yes, you are
>>more subtle than this:) is what will make Lisp more popular.
>
>
> I agree. I think one of the best way of advocating Lisp is to use
> reverse psychology, thus bypassing the mental filtering most people
> get when hearing Lisp-Wheenie-style advocacy.
>
> For instance, Paul Graham says: "But I don't expect to convince anyone
> (over 25) to go out and learn Lisp." While this superficially looks
> like "Don't learn Lisp, it's too much trouble when you are old." it's
> really a teaser, taunting people into learning Lisp, or otherwise
> feeling old.
Here is another example. In February 2002, I had the following to say in
a discussion about Lisp (in the patterns discussion mailing list):
> In my opinion the entry barrier
> to Lisp is too high, and I think that this is the main problem.
(...and several other stupid things that are too embarrasing to repeat.
Thank god that mailing list isn't archived. ;)
Anyway, Richard Gabriel made the following reply:
> True, only the creatively intelligent can prosper in the Lisp world.
This utterance has virtually changed my life!
(Maybe this is something for Kenny's "Road to Lisp" list...)
Pascal
From: David Combs
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <bnjk02$5am$1@reader1.panix.com>
In article <···························@posting.google.com>,
Sebastian Stern <········@yahoo.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
>"learning Lisp is hazardous to your health" on the surface, but is
>actually saying "Lisp is so flexible and integrated, that once you
>have tried it, you won't want anything else."
>
>So don't explicitly say how great Lisp is, but try to sneak this
>implicitly into the text.
Also, for some examples, a bulleted-or-numbered list of points
that lay out just what in your program, as lisp enables it
to be, makes it so vastly much easier to (1) write (2) think
about than in eg c++ or java.
David
From: David Combs
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <bnjjq1$57g$1@reader1.panix.com>
In article <···························@posting.google.com>,
pkhuong <··········@pvk.ca> wrote:
>SNIP
>There seems to be a bit of Lisp advocacy by putting down other
>languages, which i'm not sure is appropriate. You might want to say,
>for instance, "Common Lisp sports [...] a very complete exception
>system [...]" instead of "Common Lisp sports [...] a condition system
>that beats the pants off Java's and Python's exception systems[...]",
(Note: I have not yet seen these chapters, though will soon.)
Actually, I like the "beats the pants off ...", and believe
that it *needs* to be there. However, I'd put it into
a footnote (right there on the same page, easy to see!),
and prefix it with
"From using both, my own opinion is that ..."
>especially when you do not seem to back what you are advancing. If you
Well, a few lines within that footnote backing up and providing the *why* of
your opinion.
>truly believe that it is important to show how complete Cl is, when
>compared to languages like Python and Java, then why not do so, in a
>well-structured and well-documented way, in an appendix (where such
>things belong, imho)?
>
>I see that you want to convert others to Lisp. I can agree with this
>goal, but i don't think that denigrating other languages (yes, you are
>more subtle than this:) is what will make Lisp more popular. Why not
>simply present Lisp for what it is? Since your target audience is
>programmers, i think your approach is already pretty good: jump to the
>meat of the subject matter ASAP, and stay relatively conventional at
>first (no clever trick, etc). That way, the reader isn't bored before
>you have the chance to get him hooked, and can also easily compare
>himself the Lisp code and what he would have written in his language
>of choice. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
Presuming his language-of-choice is java, c++, c+, python, ...
Be sure to not write something that can be attacked
by "yes, but a *clever* programmer in that language
would have done it *this* way: xxx".
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
> Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured
> I'd post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere
> (e.g. #lisp or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it
> there, here's it is.)
>
> I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
> for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
> really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
> they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there
> things I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early
> chapters?
I think some mention of Scheme would be good. A few years ago that
would have been even more important (back when Guile looked like the
way that GNOME, gdb, Emacs, etc., were going to be scripted), but even
so if you're going to mention Perl, Python, then it makes sense to put
Scheme in some kind of perspective.
[...]
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <m3n0cfxs97.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Bruce Stephens <············@cenderis.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
>
> > Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured
> > I'd post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere
> > (e.g. #lisp or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it
> > there, here's it is.)
> >
> > I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
> > for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
> > really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
> > they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there
> > things I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early
> > chapters?
>
> I think some mention of Scheme would be good. A few years ago that
> would have been even more important (back when Guile looked like the
> way that GNOME, gdb, Emacs, etc., were going to be scripted), but
> even so if you're going to mention Perl, Python, then it makes sense
> to put Scheme in some kind of perspective.
Good point. I expect to somewhere, mostly to make it clear to folks
that I'm talking about substantially different language than they may
have been subjected to in their one college "Lisp" course. (Of course,
I'm sure Scheme as used in the real world is *also* substantially
different than what folks are subjected to in freshman Comp. Sci. But
that's a topic for another book. I.e. I have no beef with Scheme but
this book is decidedly about Common Lisp.)
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> writes:
[...]
> Good point. I expect to somewhere, mostly to make it clear to folks
> that I'm talking about substantially different language than they
> may have been subjected to in their one college "Lisp" course. (Of
> course, I'm sure Scheme as used in the real world is *also*
> substantially different than what folks are subjected to in freshman
> Comp. Sci. But that's a topic for another book. I.e. I have no beef
> with Scheme but this book is decidedly about Common Lisp.)
I'm not so worried about college courses (although that's a reasonable
worry). It's just that there's lots of scheme about (or talk about
it) in the free software world. In reality, Python seems to have
taken over that niche. Anyway, I guess a sentence in the first
chapter (the one mentioning Perl, Python, C#, etc.) and a couple of
paragraphs later in the book would be appropriate.
(I'm certainly not suggesting that you write a book about scheme, or a
book that tries to cover both common lisp and scheme. A "Practical
Scheme" book might be nice, but it would probably need to choose a
specific implementation, and I'm not sure which one would be best.)
Anyway, I like the book, as it is so far.
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote:
>
>Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured I'd
>post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere (e.g. #lisp
>or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it there, here's it
>is.)
>
>I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
>for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
>really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
>they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
>I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
>
>The chapters are the ones at:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>
>
>marked with "Ready for review, 2003-10-02", specifically:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-a-once-and-future-history-of-lisp.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lather-rinse-repeat-a-tour-of-the-repl.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/mini-practical-a-simple-database.html>
Looks good. I especially like that how, after a short introduction,
you dive right into a small, but practical, little example program
that can actually be used for something. Most introductory texts on
Lisp I've seen so far tend to try to explain the whole language and
only give small examples that aren't of much practical use.
If you want to convice people that Lisp is good for more than "just that
fancy AI stuff", you have to show them practical examples - which you
do.
The things that non-Lisp-programmers tend to "know" about the language
are along the lines of
- "it has this funny syntax with lots of parentheses",
- it is used for "AI stuff in university labs",
- "Lisp is slow" (false, I know),
- that operating system disguised as an editor (called "emacs") uses it
alot (if they know UNIX),
- not much use for real problems (people probably couldn't be more
wrong with this one, but it seems one of the common misconceptions).
Therefore your approach of first showing a tiny example of starting with
a quickly understandable example of a practical application before
diving into the language is, in my opinion, a very good one.
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 21:17:52 GMT, Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com>
wrote:
>
>Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured I'd
>post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere (e.g. #lisp
>or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it there, here's it
>is.)
>
>I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
>for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
>really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
>they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
>I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
>
>The chapters are the ones at:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>
>
>marked with "Ready for review, 2003-10-02", specifically:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-a-once-and-future-history-of-lisp.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lather-rinse-repeat-a-tour-of-the-repl.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/mini-practical-a-simple-database.html>
>
Peter,
I am really impressed with the book so far. I believe that I am very
close to the target audience of this book, with perhaps a little more
Lisp experience than you are aiming for. I read the first three
chapters straight through and I've been browsing through the not ready
to review chapters.
I am very excited about this book. The writing style is excellent and
the practical approach is fantastic. I believe that this will be one
of the books that helps (as Kenny is fond of saying) Lisp turn the
corner. Many people believe and have heard that Lisp is the best
programming language, but they don't understand how to put it to
practical use. As such Practical Lisp is exactly what is needed now.
Much kudos!
p.s. I submitted a few minor spelling corrections and a note or two to
the e-mail address listed.
Doug Tolton
(format t ···@~a~a.~a" "dtolton" "ya" "hoo" "com")
* Peter Seibel:
> I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm
> writing for Apress in a form that they are ready for some
> review.
You mention a 1956-Lisp, but there is no Lisp in 1956.
There is the famous Conference, there is IPL-II and FORTRAN I, there
is the `... desire for an algebraic list processing language for
artificial intelligence work on the IBM 704 ...' and the not yet
started project for a plane geometry theorem prover, which led to the
development of FLPL ... (See `McCarthy 1979: History of Lisp')
You say `... Cold War ... Pentagon poured money into DARPA ...'.
Right. There is no Lispnik without the Sputnik.
--
"Hurry if you still want to see something. Everything is vanishing."
-- Paul C�zanne (1839-1906)
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <m3u16lrwzx.fsf@javamonkey.com>
·····@gmx.net (Wolfhard Bu�) writes:
> * Peter Seibel:
> > I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm
> > writing for Apress in a form that they are ready for some
> > review.
>
> You mention a 1956-Lisp, but there is no Lisp in 1956.
Ah. Good point. I'm not sure where I got that date but it may have
been this sentence from the History section of the Hyperspec:
Early key ideas in Lisp were developed by John McCarthy during the
1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence.
Of course, rereading that more carefully I see that that doesn't imply
the language was actually implemented, just that the key ideas had
been developed. According to my Lisp 1.5 Programmers Manual, the Lisp
1 Programmers Manual was published in 1960. So presumably the first
implementation was available by then.
> There is the famous Conference, there is IPL-II and FORTRAN I, there
> is the `... desire for an algebraic list processing language for
> artificial intelligence work on the IBM 704 ...' and the not yet
> started project for a plane geometry theorem prover, which led to the
> development of FLPL ... (See `McCarthy 1979: History of Lisp')
>
>
> You say `... Cold War ... Pentagon poured money into DARPA ...'.
>
> Right. There is no Lispnik without the Sputnik.
:-)
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: james anderson
Subject: "LISP" [Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <3F82D23D.5D2C14D4@setf.de>
if you follow stoyan's exposition, the first use would been in ai memo 4 which
he places in 1958.
his online copy is not terribly legible and the ai lab goes back only as far
as ai memo 7, but his exposition is more chronological than mccarthy's.
Peter Seibel wrote:
>
> ·····@gmx.net (Wolfhard Bu�) writes:
>
> > * Peter Seibel:
> > > I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm
> > > writing for Apress in a form that they are ready for some
> > > review.
> >
> > You mention a 1956-Lisp, but there is no Lisp in 1956.
>
> Ah. Good point. I'm not sure where I got that date but it may have
> been this sentence from the History section of the Hyperspec:
>
> Early key ideas in Lisp were developed by John McCarthy during the
> 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence.
>
> Of course, rereading that more carefully I see that that doesn't imply
> the language was actually implemented, just that the key ideas had
> been developed. According to my Lisp 1.5 Programmers Manual, the Lisp
> 1 Programmers Manual was published in 1960. So presumably the first
> implementation was available by then.
>
> > There is the famous Conference, there is IPL-II and FORTRAN I, there
> > is the `... desire for an algebraic list processing language for
> > artificial intelligence work on the IBM 704 ...' and the not yet
> > started project for a plane geometry theorem prover, which led to the
> > development of FLPL ... (See `McCarthy 1979: History of Lisp')
S.R. Russell noticed that eval could serve as an interpreter for LISP,
and promptly coded it -- against McCarthy's advise and wishes, and we
ended up with a very special programming language where "code is
always data and data can be code" :-) ... by pure serendipity, a
benign "historical accident" in the Feyerabend's sense. More on this
at: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyLisp
In fact McCarthy wrote in:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/lisp/lisp.html
"Writing eval required inventing a notation representing
LISP functions as LISP data, and such a notation was
devised for the purposes of the paper with no thought
that it would be used to express LISP programs in practice."
which is, of course, specially enlightening -- the notation was used
to write a paper -- McCarthy _never_ intended that notation to be
_the_ language. Rumor says he was still looking for a "syntax" for
Lisp
other than s-expressions long after S.R. Russell wrote the interpreter
;-)
- Mike
james anderson <··············@setf.de> wrote in message news:<·················@setf.de>...
> if you follow stoyan's exposition, the first use would been in ai memo 4 which
> he places in 1958.
>
> his online copy is not terribly legible and the ai lab goes back only as far
> as ai memo 7, but his exposition is more chronological than mccarthy's.
>
> Peter Seibel wrote:
> >
> > ·····@gmx.net (Wolfhard Bu�) writes:
> >
> > > * Peter Seibel:
> > > > I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm
> > > > writing for Apress in a form that they are ready for some
> > > > review.
> > >
> > > You mention a 1956-Lisp, but there is no Lisp in 1956.
> >
> > Ah. Good point. I'm not sure where I got that date but it may have
> > been this sentence from the History section of the Hyperspec:
> >
> > Early key ideas in Lisp were developed by John McCarthy during the
> > 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence.
> >
> > Of course, rereading that more carefully I see that that doesn't imply
> > the language was actually implemented, just that the key ideas had
> > been developed. According to my Lisp 1.5 Programmers Manual, the Lisp
> > 1 Programmers Manual was published in 1960. So presumably the first
> > implementation was available by then.
> >
> > > There is the famous Conference, there is IPL-II and FORTRAN I, there
> > > is the `... desire for an algebraic list processing language for
> > > artificial intelligence work on the IBM 704 ...' and the not yet
> > > started project for a plane geometry theorem prover, which led to the
> > > development of FLPL ... (See `McCarthy 1979: History of Lisp')
From: Steve Graham
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <3F84AE91.5090708@comcast.net>
Peter,
As a programmer of 20+ years in MUMPS, Fortran, COBOL, Forth and
Icon, I found your chapters quite interesting and understandable. I've
wanted for some time to learn Lisp/Scheme, and I think this should be an
ideal way. When I think about how little space "other languages" than
Visual Basic, C++ and Java get in the computer books section of the
local Micro Center, I would be interested to know how you persuaded the
publisher to print a tome on Lisp.
Thanks.
Steve Graham
===
Peter Seibel wrote:
>Since some of the folks here have expressed an interest, I figured I'd
>post this here. (Some of you may have seen this elsewhere (e.g. #lisp
>or lemonodor) but on the off chance anyone missed it there, here's it
>is.)
>
>I have the first three chapters of the Common Lisp book I'm writing
>for Apress in a form that they are ready for some review. These are
>really introductory chapters so the main question is, do you think
>they will draw in non Lispers? Another questions is: are there things
>I didn't mention that I really need to cover in these early chapters?
>
>The chapters are the ones at:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>
>
>marked with "Ready for review, 2003-10-02", specifically:
>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-a-once-and-future-history-of-lisp.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lather-rinse-repeat-a-tour-of-the-repl.html>
> <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/mini-practical-a-simple-database.html>
>
>There are other chapters there on the web in various stages of
>development--feel free to read anything you want but be aware that
>things I haven't marked as being ready for review might change
>radically at any point. Also there are no guarantees that I've even
>run a spell checker over some of those chapters, let alone gone over
>them with a red pen looking for typos. I happen to be horrendous at
>it's/its (not because I don't know which is correct but because I just
>don't type the right one--it's some problem in my brain and its
>connection to my fingers) so you don't really need to point out every
>place I got that wrong.
>
>As always, comments, questions, and flames are all welcome. Feel free
>to use the address book AT gigamonkeys DOT com if you want to help me
>keep my mail sorted out.
>
>-Peter
>
>P.S. Please don't post these urls elsewhere--I'm putting these on the
>web for friends-and-family review--with the denizens of c.l.l. being
>at least presumptive friends--not for publicity. Thanks.
>
>
>
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <m38ynvnosd.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Steve Graham <·········@comcast.net> writes:
> Peter,
>
> As a programmer of 20+ years in MUMPS, Fortran, COBOL, Forth and
> Icon, I found your chapters quite interesting and understandable.
> I've wanted for some time to learn Lisp/Scheme, and I think this
> should be an ideal way.
Great. Thanks for the kind words.
> When I think about how little space "other languages" than Visual
> Basic, C++ and Java get in the computer books section of the local
> Micro Center, I would be interested to know how you persuaded the
> publisher to print a tome on Lisp.
Ah, I cleverly waited until Franz (makers of Allegro Common Lisp) had
already convinced Apress to publish a book on Common Lisp. They
originally had another author signed up but for some reason or another
he decided not to do it. So just as Franz was looking around for a new
author, I started started organizing meetings of the Bay Area Lispniks
which brought me in contact with one of the Franz developers who
invited me to their office to talk to some of their sales guys, one of
whom happened to know about the Apress book project. He introduced me
to the president of Franz and one intense weekend of proposal writing
later I was the new author. ;-)
I suspect that Apress was willing to do it because Gary Cornell, the
CEO, is a technologist as much as he is a publisher. He used to be, I
believ, a comp sci. professor and is just personally interested in
different ideas about programming.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Steve Graham
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <3F84C3FF.4090600@comcast.net>
--------------060702070102070709090906
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Very interesting. Best of luck. Steve
Peter Seibel wrote:
>Steve Graham <·········@comcast.net> writes:
>
>
>
>>Peter,
>>
>> As a programmer of 20+ years in MUMPS, Fortran, COBOL, Forth and
>>Icon, I found your chapters quite interesting and understandable.
>>I've wanted for some time to learn Lisp/Scheme, and I think this
>>should be an ideal way.
>>
>>
>
>Great. Thanks for the kind words.
>
>
>
>>When I think about how little space "other languages" than Visual
>>Basic, C++ and Java get in the computer books section of the local
>>Micro Center, I would be interested to know how you persuaded the
>>publisher to print a tome on Lisp.
>>
>>
>
>Ah, I cleverly waited until Franz (makers of Allegro Common Lisp) had
>already convinced Apress to publish a book on Common Lisp. They
>originally had another author signed up but for some reason or another
>he decided not to do it. So just as Franz was looking around for a new
>author, I started started organizing meetings of the Bay Area Lispniks
>which brought me in contact with one of the Franz developers who
>invited me to their office to talk to some of their sales guys, one of
>whom happened to know about the Apress book project. He introduced me
>to the president of Franz and one intense weekend of proposal writing
>later I was the new author. ;-)
>
>I suspect that Apress was willing to do it because Gary Cornell, the
>CEO, is a technologist as much as he is a publisher. He used to be, I
>believ, a comp sci. professor and is just personally interested in
>different ideas about programming.
>
>-Peter
>
>
>
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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Very interesting. Best of luck. Steve<br>
<br>
Peter Seibel wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" ·······················@javamonkey.com">
<pre wrap="">Steve Graham <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" ······················@comcast.net">&············@comcast.net></a> writes:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Peter,
As a programmer of 20+ years in MUMPS, Fortran, COBOL, Forth and
Icon, I found your chapters quite interesting and understandable.
I've wanted for some time to learn Lisp/Scheme, and I think this
should be an ideal way.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Great. Thanks for the kind words.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">When I think about how little space "other languages" than Visual
Basic, C++ and Java get in the computer books section of the local
Micro Center, I would be interested to know how you persuaded the
publisher to print a tome on Lisp.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Ah, I cleverly waited until Franz (makers of Allegro Common Lisp) had
already convinced Apress to publish a book on Common Lisp. They
originally had another author signed up but for some reason or another
he decided not to do it. So just as Franz was looking around for a new
author, I started started organizing meetings of the Bay Area Lispniks
which brought me in contact with one of the Franz developers who
invited me to their office to talk to some of their sales guys, one of
whom happened to know about the Apress book project. He introduced me
to the president of Franz and one intense weekend of proposal writing
later I was the new author. ;-)
I suspect that Apress was willing to do it because Gary Cornell, the
CEO, is a technologist as much as he is a publisher. He used to be, I
believ, a comp sci. professor and is just personally interested in
different ideas about programming.
-Peter
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>
--------------060702070102070709090906--
Since other have been posting critiques here I'll throw in my two
cents to let other agree or disagree.
First of all, the praise. Like Steve I've been programming for quite a
few years. I've also read Paul Graham's books and Norvig's PAIP, but
there were plenty of things I've learned from your chapters. Your
explanation of macros in the mini-practical was the clearest and
simplest I've seen, and after your chaper on variables it's the first
time I understood dynamic variables.
As someone who came from Java to Python to Lisp (skipping Perl), I was
looking for something in early in chapter 1 to grab the Java/Python
programmer and explain to them why they want to go to Lisp. I think
it's in there in places, perhaps moving some of the text in the "Where
it's going" part of chapter 1 closer to the front, and the part about
taking years to get Java syntax changed. Just a few paragraphs near
the front to grab someone who picks up the book in a bookstore to
explain why Common Lisp is a "better Java than Java" or a "better
Python than Python". Perhaps in a preface or foreword.
Peter Seibel <·····@javamonkey.com> wrote:
>Steve Graham <·········@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Peter,
>>
>> As a programmer of 20+ years in MUMPS, Fortran, COBOL, Forth and
>> Icon, I found your chapters quite interesting and understandable.
>> I've wanted for some time to learn Lisp/Scheme, and I think this
>> should be an ideal way.
>
>Great. Thanks for the kind words.
>
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <m33ce1kbkh.fsf@javamonkey.com>
······@bellsouth.net (Ralph Richard Cook) writes:
> Since other have been posting critiques here I'll throw in my two
> cents to let other agree or disagree.
>
> First of all, the praise. Like Steve I've been programming for quite
> a few years. I've also read Paul Graham's books and Norvig's PAIP,
> but there were plenty of things I've learned from your chapters.
> Your explanation of macros in the mini-practical was the clearest
> and simplest I've seen, and after your chaper on variables it's the
> first time I understood dynamic variables.
Great! I'm glad to hear it's clear and helpful.
> As someone who came from Java to Python to Lisp (skipping Perl), I
> was looking for something in early in chapter 1 to grab the
> Java/Python programmer and explain to them why they want to go to
> Lisp. I think it's in there in places, perhaps moving some of the
> text in the "Where it's going" part of chapter 1 closer to the
> front, and the part about taking years to get Java syntax changed.
> Just a few paragraphs near the front to grab someone who picks up
> the book in a bookstore to explain why Common Lisp is a "better Java
> than Java" or a "better Python than Python". Perhaps in a preface or
> foreword.
Those are good points. I've wrestled quite a bit with the
browser-in-a-bookstore problem and I expect to wrestle with it quite a
bit more before I'm done.
I love to hear people's impressions because that problem in particular
requires a lot of balancing--e.g. I need to point out how Lisp rules
yet not put off people who like their current language, etc. Thus
hearing how different people actually react to what I've got is
incredibly useful. So thanks.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: David Combs
Subject: Re: Some chapters of Practical Common Lisp on web.
Date:
Message-ID: <bnjk8c$5ei$1@reader1.panix.com>
In article <···············@black132.ex.ac.uk>,
Alexander Schmolck <··········@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>Joe Marshall's recently posted lists of real-world uses of macros are a nice
WHERE, WHERE?
David