Dear Lispers,
Roughly three months ago I started programming for the first time ever
in my life. It seems I've finally found my passion in life. At the
moment I know some C++ and am almost finished with my first C# book. I
acquired a job at a college institution which hires students to work
on relatively small projects for small business.
A few days ago, someone recommended me to learn Lisp, linking me to
the SICP website. So I clicked away and tumbled into an unfamiliar
world. The language managed to intrigued me.
When I told my boss the next day I wanted to learn Lisp he bursted out
in laughter. "Lisp?" he exclaimed. "That ancient, weird language from
university, why would you want to learn THAT?" (note: he didn't finish
uni). As a novice programmer I couldn't come up with a viable response
on the fly.
Maybe his response even strenghtened my interest in Lisp.
I'm wondering what the best starting point is for a novice wanting to
learn the language like me? Pick up a copy of SICP (and thus work with
scheme) or pick up a good book about Common Lisp?
Now I've arrived here, at comp.lang.lisp about to delve into the
language, hoping to prove my boss wrong one day...
Regards,
Arjen.
Arjen Logghe <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> I'm wondering what the best starting point is for a novice wanting to
> learn the language like me? Pick up a copy of SICP (and thus work with
> scheme) or pick up a good book about Common Lisp?
I like Common Lisp. Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel and
Paradigms of AI Programming by Peter Norvig are both good books for
getting started with Common Lisp.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is a great book, but
it is not a great book for learning the details of using Common Lisp.
Zach
Arjen Logghe <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>
> I'm wondering what the best starting point is for a novice wanting to
> learn the language like me? Pick up a copy of SICP (and thus work with
> scheme) or pick up a good book about Common Lisp?
>
Pick one of "Practical Common Lisp", by Peter Seibel
(http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/) or "Common Lisp: A Gentle
Introduction to Symbolic Computation", by David Touretzky
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/index.html).
I started with PCL, got bogged down, switched to Gentle, then went back
to PCL.
Norvig's "Principles of Artifical Intelligence Programming" is an
incredible book, but it isn't a tutorial.
The SICP videos that you've already mentioned are must viewing; Norvig
covers delayed execution (Scheme "streams") in Lisp.
> Now I've arrived here, at comp.lang.lisp about to delve into the
> language, hoping to prove my boss wrong one day...
Do it for yourself. That way, even if your boss is never enlightened,
you still won't be disappointed.
Arjen Logghe wrote:
> I'm wondering what the best starting point is for a novice wanting to
> learn the language like me? Pick up a copy of SICP (and thus work with
> scheme) or pick up a good book about Common Lisp?
SICP is a great book for the philosophy of good software, but I wouldn't
recommend using it as the main introduction to Lisp... unless you really
want to write another computer algebra system.
Here's some online books in addition to those recommended by Bob Felts.
http://www.psg.com/~dlamkins/sl/cover.html
http://www.lisp.org/HyperSpec/FrontMatter/index.html
Not a beginner's guide; but this is the standard reference for all the
language's features.
http://paulgraham.com/acl.html (first 2 chapters only)
http://paulgraham.com/onlisp.html
I started with Paul Graham's ANSI Common Lisp; it was just enough to
make me "dangerous" in a couple weeks. Its a quicker and more direct
introduction than some of the others.
Later,
Daniel
> I started with Paul Graham's ANSI Common Lisp; it was just enough to
> make me "dangerous" in a couple weeks. Its a quicker and more direct
> introduction than some of the others.
I like ANSI Common Lisp much more than most other intro programming
language books I've read. It's short, to the point, and largely free
of needless pontification.
Rayiner Hashem <·······@gmail.com> writes:
> > I started with Paul Graham's ANSI Common Lisp; it was just enough to
> > make me "dangerous" in a couple weeks. Its a quicker and more direct
> > introduction than some of the others.
>
> I like ANSI Common Lisp much more than most other intro programming
> language books I've read. It's short, to the point, and largely free
> of needless pontification.
It's also nearly free of things like CLOS, LOOP, sane variable names
(LST, in Common Lisp?), sane COND usage, etc. I started with ANSI
Common Lisp, but I'm glad there are other books available today for
people who want to learn.
I like this as a reference for notably weird bits in ACL:
http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/academics/courses/325/readings/graham/graham-notes.html
Zach
Arjen Logghe wrote:
> Roughly three months ago I started programming for the first time ever
> in my life. It seems I've finally found my passion in life. At the
> moment I know some C++ and am almost finished with my first C# book. I
> acquired a job at a college institution which hires students to work
> on relatively small projects for small business.
Learning some C++, C# and Lisp in three months sounds very impressing. But
don't say, you've found programming as your passion in life. Even I, who
programs for about 25 yerars, don't know, if the rest of my life painting
or gardening would be more pleasant. Other famous people in this newsgroup
likes bartending :-)
> When I told my boss the next day I wanted to learn Lisp he bursted out
> in laughter. "Lisp?" he exclaimed. "That ancient, weird language from
> university, why would you want to learn THAT?" (note: he didn't finish
> uni). As a novice programmer I couldn't come up with a viable response
> on the fly.
A mangager would like to see some examples, if a technique can be turned
into some revenue. Looks like there are at least 3 companies, who makes a
living from selling Common Lisp implementations. E.g. for some succes
stories take a look at http://www.franz.com/success/all_customer_apps.lhtml
--
Frank Buss, ··@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de
Frank Buss wrote:
> E.g. for some succes
> stories take a look at http://www.franz.com/success/all_customer_apps.lhtml
and http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html
--
Frank Buss, ··@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de
On May 22, 9:53 pm, Arjen Logghe <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Lispers,
>
> Roughly three months ago I started programming for the first time ever
> in my life. It seems I've finally found my passion in life. At the
> moment I know some C++ and am almost finished with my first C# book. I
> acquired a job at a college institution which hires students to work
> on relatively small projects for small business.
>
> A few days ago, someone recommended me to learn Lisp, linking me to
> the SICP website. So I clicked away and tumbled into an unfamiliar
> world. The language managed to intrigued me.
>
> When I told my boss the next day I wanted to learn Lisp he bursted out
> in laughter. "Lisp?" he exclaimed. "That ancient, weird language from
> university, why would you want to learn THAT?" (note: he didn't finish
> uni). As a novice programmer I couldn't come up with a viable response
> on the fly.
>
> Maybe his response even strenghtened my interest in Lisp.
>
> I'm wondering what the best starting point is for a novice wanting to
> learn the language like me? Pick up a copy of SICP (and thus work with
> scheme) or pick up a good book about Common Lisp?
Hm tricky question. Scheme is prettier than Common Lisp , but common
lisp has a bigger standard meaning that your code is cross platform &
cross implementation if you stick with the standard, it has a bigger
and more active community (IMHO :) ), larger library base and
commercial vendors with a good reputation - something that could win
you points with managers.The only things that common lisp lacks are
very light-weight threads like Gambit (though never tried
scieeneer) . So unless you plan to build something that needs hundreds
of thousands threads if you plan to use lisp commercially, probably
common lisp might be a better option, but it's all up to you. If you
learn common lisp picking up scheme is very fast, the other way will
take little longer concerning common lisp is language huge compared
with minimalistic scheme.
The other posters already gave you a good recommendations for a lisp
book (PCL, Gentre Introduction, ACL..) for scheme look at
http://www.t3x.org/sketchy/vol1/ it was just published few days ago.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/f32dbf5734ebc67d.
If you're planning to learn on windows and you're addicted to Visual
Studio start with full-package ditribution like one of lisp in a box,
LW personal or allegro express in no specific order when you build
your knowledge you'll be able to decide what implementation you plan
to use
>
> Now I've arrived here, at comp.lang.lisp about to delve into the
> language, hoping to prove my boss wrong one day...
>
> Regards,
>
> Arjen.
On Wed, 23 May 2007 20:14:29 +0200, Arjen Logghe <···········@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Thanks all for you replies. I'll be using the SICP book in combination
> with DrScheme, which seems a nice editor. Didn't like GNU/MIT Scheme's
> Emacs very much (or should I try harder?).
>
You seem to be a bit confused.
Dr Scheme is not just a editor. It is a Scheme developing environment.
Emacs is a Editor. It is not designed specifically for Scheme.
However Emacs is a very powerful editor which integrates with Lisp
very well and you would probably benefit from taking the time to learn it.
This is a Common Lisp group so Scheme development is a bit off topic.
Emacs + SLIME + Lisp seems the most popular configuration among Common
Lispers.
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