On Mar 1, 8:46 am, Didier Verna <······@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:
> Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
> insane !
Why? that's how we learnt CL (well, from CLtL1). Being able to read
language references and specifications, especially ones written as
well as either edition of CLtL and the CL standard, is an important
distinguishing characteristic for good programmers.
--tim
On Mar 1, 10:45 am, "Tim Bradshaw" <··········@tfeb.org> wrote:
> On Mar 1, 8:46 am, Didier Verna <······@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:
>
> > Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
> > insane !
>
> Why? that's how we learnt CL (well, from CLtL1). Being able to read
> language references and specifications, especially ones written as
> well as either edition of CLtL and the CL standard, is an important
> distinguishing characteristic for good programmers.
>
> --tim
I don't think it's a good place for beginners to start. A much more
gentle introduction would be better; Practical Common Lisp, or PG's
Common Lisp for example.
But I think it's fine to point people at the spec. for questions like
"what does mapcar do?"
Justin
Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> On Mar 1, 8:46 am, Didier Verna <······@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:
>
>>Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
>>insane !
>
>
> Why? that's how we learnt CL (well, from CLtL1). Being able to read
> language references and specifications, especially ones written as
> well as either edition of CLtL and the CL standard, is an important
> distinguishing characteristic for good programmers.
I'm with Didier on this one. But then I lack the distinguishing
characteristic for good programmers, I cannot understand a word of
technical writing any less proficient than K&R or PG. And I am afraid
CLtL is not well-written. If you think it is, you may be an alien or
something.
kt
--
Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and
I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.
-- Elwood P. Dowd
In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.
-- Elwood's Mom
On Mar 1, 11:20 am, Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> wrote:
> And I am afraid CLtL is not well-written. If you think it is,
> you may be an alien or something.
Well, lisp is made with secret alien technology. :-)
http://lispers.org/
> And I am afraid
> CLtL is not well-written. If you think it is, you may be an alien or
> something.
>
> kt
Guy Steele is one of my heroes. I'm not sure I could learn a language
starting from one of his books, but I find them indispensable as a
second book. At first with CLtL1 I got lost in the technical stuff in
the first ten pages, and I learned from other books. But a few years
later CLtL1 was favorite reading on trains and in pizza parlors. (I
now use the ANSI spec.) Learning C [1], I read K&R from cover to
cover but got dissatisfied with its imprecision at some places. Now
when I have to look up something in C, I spend half my time in K&R and
half in Harbison and Steele. With Java it was similar: first a big
fat book that promised to cover everything in only 1200 pages, then
the online Java Language Specification, of which Steele is one author.
[1] Off topic? Kenny brought up K&R first. :-)
On 2007-03-01 17:20:48 +0000, Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> said:
> And I am afraid CLtL is not well-written. If you think it is, you may
> be an alien or something.
While I am, of course, an alien (actually, technically you lot are the
aliens since I was here first, but we'll let that pass), these things
are relative. CLtL is clearly not K&R, but, well, it's not Stroustrup
either. Which reminds me to add him to my list (it's rather a long
list).
On 2007-03-01 14:40:35 -0500, Tim Bradshaw <···@tfeb.org> said:
> it's not Stroustrup either. Which reminds me to add him to my list
> (it's rather a long list).
Does that mean we can call him "Soapstrup" now?
On Mar 1, 8:40 pm, Tim Bradshaw <····@tfeb.org> wrote:
> On 2007-03-01 17:20:48 +0000, Ken Tilton <·········@gmail.com> said:
>
> > And I am afraid CLtL is not well-written. If you think it is, you may
> > be an alien or something.
>
> While I am, of course, an alien (actually, technically you lot are the
> aliens since I was here first, but we'll let that pass), these things
> are relative. CLtL is clearly not K&R, but, well, it's not Stroustrup
> either. Which reminds me to add him to my list (it's rather a long
> list).
Send 'em to On Lisp, it's free now anyway. C was easy, you only had
to learn "what" not "why." Graham did an excellent job of explaining
(one of) the mindset(s) of Lisp, and the spec tells you what the
language actually does.
And I actually think Stroustrup's book is great for C++. Not that
it's well written or clear -- it's horrible and muddle-headed. It
conveys the feel of the language perfectly.
On 2007-03-09 08:55:58 +0000, "Thomas F. Burdick <········@gmail.com>"
<········@gmail.com> said:
> And I actually think Stroustrup's book is great for C++. Not that
> it's well written or clear -- it's horrible and muddle-headed. It
> conveys the feel of the language perfectly.
quite
"Thomas F. Burdick <········@gmail.com>" <········@gmail.com> writes:
>
> And I actually think Stroustrup's book is great for C++. Not that
> it's well written or clear -- it's horrible and muddle-headed. It
> conveys the feel of the language perfectly.
>
LOL! Made my day.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
On Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:45:56 +0100, Tim Bradshaw <··········@tfeb.org>
wrote:
> On Mar 1, 8:46 am, Didier Verna <······@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:
>> Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ?
>> That's
>> insane !
>
> Why? that's how we learnt CL (well, from CLtL1). Being able to read
> language references and specifications, especially ones written as
> well as either edition of CLtL and the CL standard, is an important
> distinguishing characteristic for good programmers.
>
> --tim
>
I remember when I started with lisp and all people would answer is
RTFM.
Though the manual might provide the description for a particular
function it does not set it into a context. it is difficult to see how a
function is supposed to be used. Also it is difficult to know what to look
for.
I used to find it difficult to find the information I needed.
(CLTL is better than the ANSI document for this.)
I still do sometimes.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
"John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no> writes:
> On Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:45:56 +0100, Tim Bradshaw <··········@tfeb.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mar 1, 8:46 am, Didier Verna <······@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:
>>> Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
>>> insane !
>>
>> Why? that's how we learnt CL (well, from CLtL1). Being able to read
>> language references and specifications, especially ones written as
>> well as either edition of CLtL and the CL standard, is an important
>> distinguishing characteristic for good programmers.
>>
>> --tim
>>
>
> I remember when I started with lisp and all people would answer is
> RTFM.
>
> Though the manual might provide the description for a particular
> function it does not set it into a context. it is difficult to see how a
> function is supposed to be used. Also it is difficult to know what to look
> for.
> I used to find it difficult to find the information I needed.
> (CLTL is better than the ANSI document for this.)
> I still do sometimes.
>
Tend to agree. I use other references to narrow down what I'm looking for and
then go to the Hyperspec to get the clear and precise information. When
beginning, the hyperspec and even CLTL2 are not ideal (ghough I quite liked
CLTL2). The hyperspec is essential once you have gained a bit of understanding
and I found it a lot more useful once someone posted a url to a summary index
that grouped things together in a useful way.
For me, the most difficult part of starting to use CL was actually finding the
functions which you knew had to exist, but couldn't find because you didn't
know what they were called. This is not a problem specific to CL. I remember
when first learning C and I wanted to convert a string to an integer. I knew
there was a function to do it, but couldn't find it. Once someone pointed out
atoi, I was set and soon discovered the 'rule of thumb' for functions under C.
I had a similar issue with CL, but it took me considerably longer to really
understand the nameing style/conventions. A summary of standard functions
grouped by common operations is extremely useful. Once I know the name, I often
look it up in the hyperspec as this provides really useful and concise
information.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
Tim X <····@nospam.dev.null> wrote:
+---------------
| For me, the most difficult part of starting to use CL was actually
| finding the functions which you knew had to exist, but couldn't find
| because you didn't know what they were called.
+---------------
I think we've all experienced at least some of that. For example,
consider the ubiquitous Unix "basename" program & library function.
I knew about PATHNAME-NAME a long time ago (relatively speaking),
but it doesn't do that job if you have periods in the filename,
of course, you have to take the outputs from both PATHNAME-NAME
and PATHNAME-TYPE and then munge them back together [which might
not always even work if the original filename had *mutliple* periods
in it], so I'd been coding up my own idiosyncratic BASENAME routine
over & over again. I only *very* recently found out that CL also
has FILE-NAMESTRING, which does pretty much "the right thing"
as a "basename" replacement!
I now also know that DIRECTORY-NAMESTRING exists, and is
sometimes what I really need instead of PATHNAME-DIRECTORY.
+---------------
| Once I know the name, I often look it up in the hyperspec as
| this provides really useful and concise information.
+---------------
The CLHS's "Permuted Symbol Index" [bottom half of
<http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/Symbol-Index.html>]
can really come in handy here. If you've got even *part* of the
name right, you can usually find the right thing in the permuted
index.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
In article <···············@uzeb.lrde.epita.fr>,
Didier Verna <······@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:
> Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
> insane !
Start with CLtL1, then read CLtL2 and then the Hyperspec.
...
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Not. ;-)
Didier Verna wrote:
> Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
> insane !
Any opinions about Winston & Horn's "Lisp"? That was the Lisp textbook
for an AI class I took a long time ago, and I remember it being decent,
but I haven't seen a copy in years.
-- JK
In article <·························@roadrunner.com>,
JK <·········@kneuro.net> wrote:
> Didier Verna wrote:
>
> > Would you guys stop pointing beginners to cltl2 or the hyperspec ? That's
> > insane !
>
> Any opinions about Winston & Horn's "Lisp"? That was the Lisp textbook
> for an AI class I took a long time ago, and I remember it being decent,
> but I haven't seen a copy in years.
>
> -- JK
That's fine.
Though, for a beginner I would prefer Peter Seibel's book.
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
JK writes:
> Any opinions about Winston & Horn's "Lisp"? That was the Lisp textbook
> for an AI class I took a long time ago, and I remember it being decent,
> but I haven't seen a copy in years.
The Third Edition covers Common Lisp. It's something like Paradigms
of AI Programming (the well-known PAIP) but it's got a larger section
on Lisp programming and doesn't cover as much AI.
Don't get the second edition, I heard it wasn't very good.
The first edition covers a different language called "LISP". :-) It's
more of a collector's item now.
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
"Due to inclement weather and massive amounts of ice everywhere,
tonight's Healthy Environment Forum on Global Warming with Dr. Patz
has been postponed", wrote Sarah Doll of the Oregon Environmental
Council in an email sent to the press, "Sorry for any inconvenience
and hope you are staying warm." --- John Daly