Hi all,
Looking back on what drew me to Lisp the first time (when I was
about 12 years old), one of the biggest things was reading about some of
the legendary AI hackers at MIT, who were all using Lisp do do cool stuff.
I'd like to give a book like this to my brother for Christmas - he's just
getting into Lisp. I lent him ANSI Common Lisp already, but I want to
give him something inspiring too. I can't remember what the books
I'm thinking of might have been though... anyone have any ideas?
Best wishes,
Bill.
--
"If you give someone Fortran, he has Fortran. If you give someone Lisp,
he has any language he pleases." -- Guy Steele
From: Lowell Kirsh
Subject: Re: Lisp books with a slightly different angle
Date:
Message-ID: <cla4ul$83f$1@mughi.cs.ubc.ca>
If you're willing to stick with Paul Graham, I find On Lisp to be a much
better example of the powers of lisp.
Lowell
William Bland wrote:
> Hi all,
> Looking back on what drew me to Lisp the first time (when I was
> about 12 years old), one of the biggest things was reading about some of
> the legendary AI hackers at MIT, who were all using Lisp do do cool stuff.
> I'd like to give a book like this to my brother for Christmas - he's just
> getting into Lisp. I lent him ANSI Common Lisp already, but I want to
> give him something inspiring too. I can't remember what the books
> I'm thinking of might have been though... anyone have any ideas?
>
> Best wishes,
> Bill.
On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 04:08:59 +0000, William Bland wrote:
> Looking back on what drew me to Lisp the first time (when I was
> about 12 years old), one of the biggest things was reading about some of
> the legendary AI hackers at MIT, who were all using Lisp do do cool stuff.
> I'd like to give a book like this to my brother for Christmas - he's just
> getting into Lisp. I lent him ANSI Common Lisp already, but I want to
> give him something inspiring too. I can't remember what the books
> I'm thinking of might have been though... anyone have any ideas?
I think this would be perfect; lots of cool things that use Lisp.
http://www.norvig.com/paip.html
From: Jeff Sandys
Subject: Re: Lisp books with a slightly different angle
Date:
Message-ID: <41799AF2.FBEDD975@juno.com>
Jeremiah Bullfrog wrote:
>
> On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 04:08:59 +0000, William Bland wrote:
> > Looking back on what drew me to Lisp the first time (when I was
> > about 12 years old), one of the biggest things was reading about some of
> > the legendary AI hackers at MIT, who were all using Lisp do do cool stuff.
> > I'd like to give a book like this to my brother for Christmas - he's just
> > getting into Lisp. I lent him ANSI Common Lisp already, but I want to
> > give him something inspiring too. I can't remember what the books
> > I'm thinking of might have been though... anyone have any ideas?
>
> I think this would be perfect; lots of cool things that use Lisp.
>
> http://www.norvig.com/paip.html
I'll second Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming,
it starts at the beginning with about 100 page tutorial of Lisp.
My favorite part comes next is an implement of Herbert Simon's
Generic Problem Solver, this reads like a detective novel following
each improvement till it dead ends to another path. Norvig's
code is a model of abstraction, yet his discriptions are easy to
follow. The book covers Lisp performance and other topics in great
depth, but it is possible to skip around an read the topics that
interest you. And the code examples are available for download.
Thanks,
Jeff Sandys
From: Edi Weitz
Subject: Re: Lisp books with a slightly different angle
Date:
Message-ID: <uoeiv1cgx.fsf@agharta.de>
On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 04:08:59 GMT, William Bland <·······@abstractnonsense.com> wrote:
> Looking back on what drew me to Lisp the first time (when I
> was about 12 years old), one of the biggest things was reading about
> some of the legendary AI hackers at MIT, who were all using Lisp do
> do cool stuff. I'd like to give a book like this to my brother for
> Christmas - he's just getting into Lisp. I lent him ANSI Common
> Lisp already, but I want to give him something inspiring too. I
> can't remember what the books I'm thinking of might have been
> though... anyone have any ideas?
"Hackers" by Steven Levy might be the one your looking for - ISBN
0141000511. It's not so much about Lisp but it's a very interesting
and entertaining book.
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> wrote in message news:<·············@agharta.de>...
> "Hackers" by Steven Levy might be the one your looking for - ISBN
> 0141000511. It's not so much about Lisp but it's a very interesting
> and entertaining book.
This is the first one I thought of, too. The index has 6-8 entries
for Lisp, including several of 2-3 pages each.
"Hackers" is in the style of a best-seller, emphasizing story-telling
and drama. If the OP wants inspiring code rather than inspiring
stories, I second the other posters' recommendations of Graham's "On
Lisp" or Norvig's "Paradigms of AI Programming".
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 14:37:04 -0700, Mark McConnell wrote:
> Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> wrote in message news:<·············@agharta.de>...
>> "Hackers" by Steven Levy might be the one your looking for - ISBN
>> 0141000511. It's not so much about Lisp but it's a very interesting
>> and entertaining book.
>
> This is the first one I thought of, too. The index has 6-8 entries
> for Lisp, including several of 2-3 pages each.
>
> "Hackers" is in the style of a best-seller, emphasizing story-telling
> and drama. If the OP wants inspiring code rather than inspiring
> stories, I second the other posters' recommendations of Graham's "On
> Lisp" or Norvig's "Paradigms of AI Programming".
This time I was looking for inspiring stories rather than inspiring code
so, yeah, Hackers is great - I'll probably get my brother that. Hmm,
thinking back though, I seem to remember some references to Lisp (in
particular the Connection Machine) in another Levy book, Artificial Life.
Hmm, it's been so long since I read either one though, I'm not sure... oh
well, either one will probably be good.
Thanks for all the other suggestions btw. I'm very much enjoying
dipping into PAIP whenever I get a chance at the moment, but I think
giving a copy to my brother would be cruel - he really is a Lisp newbie
(although he's a very gifted programmer in general).
As for On Lisp, I'm eagerly awaiting the reprinting!
Thanks again,
Bill.
--
"If you give someone Fortran, he has Fortran. If you give someone Lisp,
he has any language he pleases." -- Guy Steele
In article <······························@abstractnonsense.com>,
William Bland <·······@abstractnonsense.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Looking back on what drew me to Lisp the first time (when I was
> about 12 years old), one of the biggest things was reading about some of
> the legendary AI hackers at MIT, who were all using Lisp do do cool stuff.
> I'd like to give a book like this to my brother for Christmas - he's just
> getting into Lisp. I lent him ANSI Common Lisp already, but I want to
> give him something inspiring too. I can't remember what the books
> I'm thinking of might have been though... anyone have any ideas?
>
> Best wishes,
> Bill.
MIT?
Then definitely Winston/Horn, Lisp, 3rd Edition. Winston
still is active at MIT (I had the pleasure to talk to
him last year :-) ).
MIT?
Abelson/Sussman, SICP.