I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
Computing which I'm halfway through.
I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
programming examples.
1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
environment?
2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
age?
Thank you for any help,
WT
On Mar 18, 9:26 am, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? ....
There is Emacs for Win32, OS X, and most other operating systems. I
only mention this because you said you installed Linux [to use
Emacs?].
Regardless of whether or not Linux is your primary working
environment, you may want to consider downloading a free version of a
commercial lisp to play around with (www.lispworks.com or www.franz.com).
Another option is to skip Common Lisp as your first "dive" into the
world of Lisp and instead go with something a tad more "pure" and
simple in size: Scheme. PLT Scheme (www.plt-scheme.org) is a good
environment for learning, and there should be binaries for just about
any platform you'd feel most comfortable on.
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
This being the "modern age" is a red herring. Are hammers, knives,
fire, and the wheel worthless now because it's 2009? I'd put that out
of your mind completely.
As a student, you should be approaching each programming language you
learn with a clean slate and an open mind. Perhaps you will use Lisp
professionally after you graduate. Perhaps not. But having learned it,
you will have a slew of new tools and paradigms at your disposal. Many
of these tools are now being incorporated into new languages being
developed that you may likely encounter in the future - or have
already. Learning these them from the grand-daddy that bore them will
only serve to benefit you later on.
Jeff M.
> There is Emacs for Win32, OS X, and most other operating systems. I
> only mention this because you said you installed Linux [to use
> Emacs?].
My problem isn't with installing emacs itself since it's already in
ubutu, but installing slime and also this heavy reliance on
keybindings (I use dvorak keyboard) and just diving into everything I
guess.
> Regardless of whether or not Linux is your primary working
> environment, you may want to consider downloading a free version of a
> commercial lisp to play around with (www.lispworks.comorwww.franz.com).
Thanks, I think I tried it a while back last summer, I'm not sure. It
was easy to use but there was some type of limitation in the free use
which I don't remember right now. Something technical.
> Another option is to skip Common Lisp as your first "dive" into the
> world of Lisp and instead go with something a tad more "pure" and
> simple in size: Scheme. PLT Scheme (www.plt-scheme.org) is a good
> environment for learning, and there should be binaries for just about
> any platform you'd feel most comfortable on.
I'll look into it. I heard that scheme was the basis of Gnucash so
that might be interesting. I don't feel uncomfortable with CL yet,
just with the IDEs I suppose. I think the GUI of Visual Studio is
kinda easy compared to emacs, which I'm just kind of lost in.
Does learning emacs have an advantage over GUI IDEs?
> This being the "modern age" is a red herring. Are hammers, knives,
> fire, and the wheel worthless now because it's 2009? I'd put that out
> of your mind completely.
>
> As a student, you should be approaching each programming language you
> learn with a clean slate and an open mind. Perhaps you will use Lisp
> professionally after you graduate. Perhaps not. But having learned it,
> you will have a slew of new tools and paradigms at your disposal. Many
> of these tools are now being incorporated into new languages being
> developed that you may likely encounter in the future - or have
> already. Learning these them from the grand-daddy that bore them will
> only serve to benefit you later on.
I guess what I'm asking is what are the strength to using Lisp vs say
C/C++ or any other language. Graham essay's kind of excited me, but
at the same time, I think he's a type of salesman and I would like
something concrete.
What attracted me to Lisp was the relative conciseness of grammar/
structure rule of Lisp from what I have seen so far, so maybe scheme
may be for me like you suggest. C isnt bad but I think something like
C++ starts going into the other extreme. I still have a tough time of
it with that language.
>
> Jeff M.
Thanks!
On Mar 18, 5:29 pm, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, I think I tried it a while back last summer, I'm not sure. It
> was easy to use but there was some type of limitation in the free use
> which I don't remember right now. Something technical.
If you even don't remember it, why bother?
> I guess what I'm asking is what are the strength to using Lisp vs say
> C/C++ or any other language.
Basically, multiple paradigm nature and suitability for
metaprogramming and rapid prototyping.
Cheers,
Vsevolod
> > Thanks, I think I tried it a while back last summer, I'm not sure. It
> > was easy to use but there was some type of limitation in the free use
> > which I don't remember right now. Something technical.
>
> If you even don't remember it, why bother?
Well, I remember running into the limitation but don't remember
anymore what it exactly was and seeing the price for a full blown
commercial version and just balking at it. If I wanted to write
something possibly of commercial value but have low start up cost, I
would like to know a free system, is what I'm getting at. Unlikely,
just a nice option.
Don't get me wrong, Lispworks looks really nice and it was really nice
to use as well in my limited experience.
Thanks.
On Mar 18, 5:22 pm, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I remember running into the limitation but don't remember
> anymore what it exactly was and seeing the price for a full blown
> commercial version and just balking at it.
The biggest limitation in both free editions of ACL and Lispworks is
the inability to make standalone applications (those are only
available in the commercial versions). That's why the free vesrions
are completely useless to me.
On Mar 18, 4:29 pm, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> My problem isn't with installing emacs itself since it's already in
> ubutu, but installing slime and also this heavy reliance on
> keybindings (I use dvorak keyboard) and just diving into everything I
> guess.
You don't need linux and don't need slime. SBCL(or ecl or clisp...)
+emacs is more than sufficient to have a practical and good working cl
environment. Split the emacs in two windows (eg upper part is the
inferior-lisp and the lower is ur working lisp file). Cx-Ce is the
command to execute the expressions from ur file into the inferior-
lisp...For further info read the emacs manual.
From: Matthias Buelow
Subject: Re: So completely lost - trying to learn Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <72ciglFo1oa8U1@mid.dfncis.de>
WolfsTemple wrote:
> Does learning emacs have an advantage over GUI IDEs?
Less mouse clicking.
WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> Does learning emacs have an advantage over GUI IDEs?
I think so, yes: if you use emacs for common lisp programming, you'll
have to get used to a set of keybindings.
When you decide later, that you prefer Aldor, or want to try Python,
or C or whatever, you'll get by mostly with the same set of
keybindings.
By then, you will probably use emacs to read news and send mail
(gnus), too, and will have written your thesis using AucTeX, eh,
emacs I wanted to type.
Oh, and you very likely will have forgotten diff and patch, because
ediff is your friend. And if you ever happen to need a computer
algebra system, you'll probably love the emacs modes that exist for
many of these systems too (FriCAS, Maxima, Sage all have one, for
example)
etc., etc., etc.,
Martin
PS: did I mention that I like emacs?
On Mar 18, 11:21 am, Martin Rubey <········@yahoo.de> wrote:
>
> When you decide later, that you prefer Aldor, or want to try Python,
> or C or whatever, you'll get by mostly with the same set of
> keybindings.
when i google aldor, i get world of warcraft? what is this aldor?
thanks, david
david <······@gmail.com> writes:
> On Mar 18, 11:21 am, Martin Rubey <········@yahoo.de> wrote:
>
> >
> > When you decide later, that you prefer Aldor, or want to try Python,
> > or C or whatever, you'll get by mostly with the same set of
> > keybindings.
>
> when i google aldor, i get world of warcraft? what is this aldor?
The language the computer algebra system FriCAS *would* be written
in, if Aldor were free software.
Still Aldor is an extremely interesting general purpose language,
with a spec, and there is an implementation that's free for
non-commercial use. See
http://www.aldor.org/docs/aldorug.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldor
There is a partial implementation which is really free, and called
SPAD, that comes with FriCAS (a fork of Axiom)
http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/FrontPage
Oh! not *completely* OT: SPAD is implemented in Common Lisp, of
course :-)
Martin
On Mar 18, 2:43 pm, Martin Rubey <········@yahoo.de> wrote:
> david <······@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Mar 18, 11:21 am, Martin Rubey <········@yahoo.de> wrote:
>
> > > When you decide later, that you prefer Aldor, or want to try Python,
> > > or C or whatever, you'll get by mostly with the same set of
> > > keybindings.
>
> > when i google aldor, i get world of warcraft? what is this aldor?
>
> The language the computer algebra system FriCAS *would* be written
> in, if Aldor were free software.
>
> Still Aldor is an extremely interesting general purpose language,
> with a spec, and there is an implementation that's free for
> non-commercial use. See
>
> http://www.aldor.org/docs/aldorug.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldor
>
> There is a partial implementation which is really free, and called
> SPAD, that comes with FriCAS (a fork of Axiom)
>
> http://axiom-wiki.newsynthesis.org/FrontPage
>
> Oh! not *completely* OT: SPAD is implemented in Common Lisp, of
> course :-)
>
> Martin
thanks for that. i missed the wikipedia link :)
maxima is one of my reasons for learning common lisp.
and before that i thought emacs calc was pretty amazing.
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon
Subject: Re: completely OT, was: So completely lost - trying to learn Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <7ceiwt7shn.fsf@pbourguignon.anevia.com>
WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>
> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
> programming examples.
>
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime???
To start, you may not use slime. When you'll know some more you'll be
able to install and use it easily. In the mean time, you can just put
this in your ~/.emacs:
(require 'cl)
(setf inferior-lisp-program "/usr/bin/clisp -ansi -q -K full -m 32M -I -E UTF-8 -Epathname ISO-8859-1 -Eforeign ISO-8859-1")
;; Or sbcl, etc
(defun lisp-eval-region (start end &optional and-go)
"Send the current region to the inferior Lisp process.
Prefix argument means switch to the Lisp buffer afterwards."
(interactive "r\nP")
(comint-send-region (inferior-lisp-proc) start end)
(comint-send-string (inferior-lisp-proc) "\n")
(if and-go (switch-to-lisp t)))
(defun lisp-eval-last-sexp (&optional and-go)
"Send the previous sexp to the inferior Lisp process.
Prefix argument means switch to the Lisp buffer afterwards."
(interactive "P")
(lisp-eval-region (save-excursion (backward-sexp) (point)) (point) and-go))
(defun lisp-meat ()
(interactive)
(local-set-key (kbd "C-x C-e") 'lisp-eval-last-sexp))
(add-hook 'lisp-mode-hook 'lisp-meat)
(add-hook 'common-lisp-mode-hook 'lisp-meat)
and after evaluating it (or restarting emacs), M-x inferior-lisp RET
Then in a lisp-mode buffer, (eg. any .lisp source file), you can type
C-x C-e to send a form to the inferior-lisp.
This is the essential feature of slime, all the rest is suggar and fat.
> Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
> environment?
To get a pre-installed slime, you can download a lisp-in-a-box with
everything pre-configured. Check PCL and http://www.gigamonkeys.com/
Otherwise, like any other emacs "package", you download a tarball,
uncompress it, put it somewhere, and add to your ~/.emacs :
(load "/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/slime/slime.el") ; or something like that.
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
Yes. Lisp offers an expressiveness advantage. Perhaps not the bare
lisp, but since it is a meta-programming programming language, soon
enough you can write your own extensions to increase exponentially
your expressive power.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Brian Adkins
Subject: Re: So completely lost - trying to learn Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <m2zlfimppw.fsf@gmail.com>
WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> Does learning emacs have an advantage over GUI IDEs?
Yes.
Once you invest some time into learning Emacs, you can leverage that
investment in a number of areas. For example, I'm typing this reply
using gnus in Emacs, so all of the functionality of Emacs (including
that which I've augmented) is available to me.
As Lisp is the "programmable programming language", Emacs is the
"editable editor". You can hack it to suit how you'd like to work.
I also use it as my IRC client which allows me to utilize Emacs'
powerful macro facility.
The split window functionality (very usable w/o a mouse) is very
important to me personally. As is the great version control
integration, ediff facility, etc.
I used the Visual C++ IDE (no studio back then) starting in '93 or
'94, and since then I've used Visual Studio, Visual Slickedit, Visual
Cafe, Borland's JBuilder, Eclipse, etc. - they all come up severely
lacking when compared to Emacs.
I have not used any Lisp IDEs though, and some folks on comp.lang.lisp
have spoken highly enough of a few that I wouldn't be opposed to
seeing what they offer wrt Lisp programming producitivity once I get a
little further down the road of Lisp.
--
Brian Adkins
http://lojic.com/
On Mar 18, 5:27 pm, Brian Adkins <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > Does learning emacs have an advantage over GUI IDEs?
>
> Yes.
>
[ .. reasons given snipped .. ]
WT,
Be careful of drinking too much Kool-Aid. ;-)
Emacs is nice and powerful. It has some _very_ cool features, but the
percentage of people that know and use it are few and far between.
It's the same with Vim, which I love.
You should feel very free to try it out. If you take the time to learn
Emacs and like it, knock yourself out! However, most of the world
doesn't use it (note: I'm talking about companies you'll try and get a
job at when you graduate). So, don't use it to the exclusion of the
major environments: Visual Studio, XCode, Eclipse, etc. They may not
be as "powerful" (that's subjective), but chances are, that's what
you'll be using a few years from now.
Someday, somewhere, a co-worker is going to have to sit down at your
machine and debug something. And sitting down in front of a Visual
Studio IDE only to discover it has the Vim plugin enabled (or it's
setup for Emacs key-bindings), will likely land you in some hot water.
Jeff M.
On Mar 18, 9:26 am, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
i am also a lisp newbie so here is my $.02
what i did was just install lisp-in-a-box for windows.
you can get lisp-in-a-box for windows and linux i think. slime is
already
installed. or you could download a newer emacs for windows. download
a cvs snapshot of slime and try installing it. i did it so it can't be
that hard :)
don't forget to load slime-fancy somewhere in .emacs or nothing will
work like the lispbox did.
do yourself a favor and do the emacs tutorial before you even start
with lisp. and remap your caps-lock to ctrl.
after you are addicted to emacs and finish touretzky, start working
in linux. i recommend "the unix programming environment" by
kernighan and pike. even if you never learn sed or awk it will
give you a good idea of linux.
On Mar 18, 2:26 pm, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there another environment?
You could try ABLE (http://phil.nullable.eu/). The manual shows you
how to rebind the keys so you can set it up how you like it for your
dvorak keyboard.
--
Phil
http://phil.nullable.eu/
On Mar 18, 9:18 pm, Phil Armitage <···············@gmail.com> wrote:
> You could try ABLE (http://phil.nullable.eu/). The manual shows you
> how to rebind the keys so you can set it up how you like it for your
> dvorak keyboard.
Indeed, ABLE was my first experience with CL, I learned a lot using
it. It's very user friendly and practical. I recommend it to others.
On 18 Mar, 15:26, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>
> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
> programming examples.
>
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
> environment?
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
>
> Thank you for any help,
> WT
Forget Common Lisp, it's not newbie friendly. Learn Scheme (a Lisp
dialect) using PLT Scheme:
http://www.plt-scheme.org/
Very newbie friendly. And quite powerful, too.
Or just learn Emacs Lisp: it's already there and it will be useful.
Why Lisp is so powerful? Read on:
http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/diff.html
Elena wrote:
> On 18 Mar, 15:26, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
>> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
>> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
>> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
>> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>>
>> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
>> programming examples.
>>
>> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
>> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
>> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
>> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
>> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
>> environment?
>> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
>> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
>> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
>> age?
>>
>> Thank you for any help,
>> WT
>
> Forget Common Lisp, it's not newbie friendly.
That's wrong, Common Lisp is totally newbie friendly.
Take an environment like LispWorks Personal Edition, or Lisp in a Box,
and Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp", and you're ready to go.
Pascal
--
ELS'09: http://www.european-lisp-symposium.org/
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
On 19 Mar, 13:46, Pascal Costanza <····@p-cos.net> wrote:
> Elena wrote:
>
> > Forget Common Lisp, it's not newbie friendly.
>
> That's wrong, Common Lisp is totally newbie friendly.
>
> Take an environment like LispWorks Personal Edition, or Lisp in a Box,
> and Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp", and you're ready to go.
I didn't elaborate further, but I wasn't talking about the language, I
was talking about the available environments. If you are acquainted
with Emacs and working with text commands, then Lisp in a Box is fine,
otherwise - for most people nowadays, I'd say - a click-and-go GUI IDE
like PLT Scheme is a better choice.
Anyway, if we compare the languages, Common Lisp targets professional
developers, therefore can be cumbersome for those who would just like
to get an idea.
Elena wrote:
> On 19 Mar, 13:46, Pascal Costanza <····@p-cos.net> wrote:
>> Elena wrote:
>>
>>> Forget Common Lisp, it's not newbie friendly.
>> That's wrong, Common Lisp is totally newbie friendly.
>>
>> Take an environment like LispWorks Personal Edition, or Lisp in a Box,
>> and Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp", and you're ready to go.
>
> I didn't elaborate further, but I wasn't talking about the language, I
> was talking about the available environments. If you are acquainted
> with Emacs and working with text commands, then Lisp in a Box is fine,
> otherwise - for most people nowadays, I'd say - a click-and-go GUI IDE
> like PLT Scheme is a better choice.
For people already accustomed to Emacs, this is not a problem.
For people who are not accustomed, that's precisely the reason why I
mentioned LispWorks Personal Edition.
> Anyway, if we compare the languages, Common Lisp targets professional
> developers, therefore can be cumbersome for those who would just like
> to get an idea.
I was also a newbie some time ago, and DrScheme didn't help back then.
Macintosh Common Lisp (now defunct) was a much better learning environment.
Mileages vary, you know? ;)
Pascal
--
ELS'09: http://www.european-lisp-symposium.org/
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:29:35 -0700 (PDT), Elena <········@gmail.com>
wrote:
>On 18 Mar, 15:26, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm a second year CS student. ?I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
>> Windows. ?I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
>> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
>> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
>> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>>
>> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
>> programming examples.
>>
>> 1. ?I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
>> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. ?I have installed
>> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? ?Is there an easy beginner's
>> guide or download? ?There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
>> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 ?Is there another
>> environment?
>> 2. ?While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
>> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
>> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
>> age?
>>
>> Thank you for any help,
>> WT
>
>Forget Common Lisp, it's not newbie friendly. Learn Scheme (a Lisp
>dialect) using PLT Scheme:
>
>http://www.plt-scheme.org/
>
>Very newbie friendly. And quite powerful, too.
Agreed, although whether Scheme or Common Lisp is better is mostly a
matter of taste. I used both Scheme and Common Lisp in the same
course in college and wound up with Scheme as my most favorite
language, and Common Lisp as one of my least favorites. Scheme is a
much smaller language with a single namespace for both functions and
variables, and it seemed to me to have a cleaner syntax and that my
implementation (T at the time, IIRC) had no error messages for
renaming existing functions, making casual exploratory programming
easier, but I'm sure that many readers of this newsgroup prefer Common
Lisp for their own reasons.
For a comparison of Lisp-1 dialects (i.e., dialects with a single
namespace for both functions and variables, such as Scheme) with
Lisp-2 dialects (i.e., dialects with two namespaces, one for functions
and one for variables, such as Common Lisp), read the following paper:
"Technical Issues of Separation in Function Cells and Value Cells"
by Richard P. Gabriel
http://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Technical-Issues.html
Here are references to a few introductory publications on Scheme:
_The Little Schemer_
(my favorite book on Scheme, which will teach you how to think
recursively; unfortunately, this book is only available in dead tree
format)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4825
_The Seasoned Schemer_
(the sequel to _The Little Schemer_; again, this book is only
available in dead tree format)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=7510&ttype=2
_Concrete Abstractions: An Introduction to Computer Science Using
Scheme_
by Max Hailperin, Barbara Kaiser, and Karl Knight
(a book introducing computer science using Scheme, in the spirit of
_Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ (see below), but
with a lower mathematical learning curve)
http://gustavus.edu/+max/concrete-abstractions.html
"Using Concrete Abstractions with DrScheme"
(a guide to using _Concrete Abstractions_ with DrScheme)
http://gustavus.edu/+max/concabs/schemes/drscheme/
_How to Design Programs_ (aka "HtDP")
by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and
Shriram Krishnamurthi
(a book that uses a series of design recipes and structural recursion
in approaching functional programming as a basis to be followed by
later courses in object-oriented programming)
http://www.htdp.org/
"The Structure and Interpretation of the Computer Science Curriculum"
by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and
Shriram Krishnamurthi
(a paper that compares and contrasts _Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs_ with _How to Design Programs_ in explaining the
motivation for the latter)
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/scheme/pubs/jfp2004-fffk.pdf
_Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days_
by Dorai Sitaram
(a book that focuses on Scheme as a language, rather than as a tool
for computer science, and that is intended as a quick-start guide to
be followed by more in-depth and comprehensive texts)
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/dorai/t-y-scheme/t-y-scheme.html
_Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ (aka "SICP")
by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman
(a classic introduction to computer science, using Scheme;
affectionately referred to by many as "the Wizard Book," because of
the wizard on the cover; regarded as the classic book on introductory
computer science by many; criticized by some as being very difficult
and requiring too much domain knowledge to master)
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
In addition, if you plan to use Emacs, be sure to use the following
tool, which greatly enhances Emacs support for Scheme:
Quack: Enhanced Emacs Support for Editing and Running Scheme Code
http://www.neilvandyke.org/quack/
Good luck!
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--
Benjamin L. Russell / DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com
http://dekudekuplex.wordpress.com/
Translator/Interpreter / Mobile: +011 81 80-3603-6725
"Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto."
-- Matsuo Basho^
Unfortunately, I had forgotten to provide the names of the authors for
the two books in _The Little Schemer_ series; my apologies; they are
listed below, together with their related information:
_The Little Schemer_
(my favorite book on Scheme, which will teach you how to think
recursively; unfortunately, this book is only available in dead tree
format)
by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen, with a foreword by
Gerald J. Sussman
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4825
_The Seasoned Schemer_
(the sequel to _The Little Schemer_; again, this book is only
available in dead tree format)
by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen, drawings by Duane Bibby,
and with a foreword and afterword by Guy L. Steele Jr.
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=7510&ttype=2
-- Benjamin L. Russell
--
Benjamin L. Russell / DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com
http://dekudekuplex.wordpress.com/
Translator/Interpreter / Mobile: +011 81 80-3603-6725
"Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto."
-- Matsuo Basho^
On 18 mar, 15:26, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>
> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
> programming examples.
Fantastic, you're probably ready to jump back into Peter's book. The
two major shortcommings of that book are that it dumps you straight
into the Practical part with no warm-up (no surprise here, and it's as
least as often an advantage as a disadvantage); and it doesn't cover
GUIs. For the latter, there's a simple solution: use Ltk. Or
LispWorks' CAPI or Allegro's Windows GUI package. But Ltk is very easy
and practical; it's what we use at work, for what it's worth.
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
> environment?
If you're a windows guy, get either LispWorks (and Edi Weitz's starter
pack) or Allegro. LW is roughly the price of Visual Studio; Allegro CL
is more expensive, but their personal version is quite usable. And you
should ask them both if someone in your university already has
academic licenses.
They're the Mercedes and BMW of the Lisp world, but if you can't use
them for whatever reason, try Phil's ABLE.
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
The modern age means that expectations are finally catching up to
Lisp. They're speaking our language. But oh yeah, Lisp languages and
Smalltalks are still relevant. Learn them both, there are real
productivity wins, especially if you're doing more than just plugging
existing parts together.
> Thank you for any help,
> WT
WolfsTemple wrote:
> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>
> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
> programming examples.
>
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
> environment?
If you like Eclipse you can try Dandelion:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dandelion-ecl
It comes with a ready to use Lisp-Environment and it should be
very easy to install.
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
>
As you exploring Lisp you will see it soon :)
> Thank you for any help,
> WT
Michael
On Mar 18, 10:26 pm, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>
> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
> programming examples.
>
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
> environment?
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
>
> Thank you for any help,
> WT
assuming you have installed Ubuntu,go to system menu,then to Synaptic
Package Manager and select emacs,slime and sbcl(or clisp or cmucl)
whichever you fancy and apply the changes.
after the installation,open a text editor and paste this:
(setq inferior-lisp-program "/usr/bin/sbcl") ;you may have to replace
sbcl with your lisp choice
(when (not (display-graphic-p))
(xterm-mouse-mode 1))
Then save the file as emacs (with a dot before it) like .emacs
Start your emacs and after it loads,press alt and x keys followed by
slime.
this should fire up your lisp environment.
hope this works for you
On Mar 18, 5:26 pm, WolfsTemple <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a second year CS student. I learned C/C++ on Visual Studio on
> Windows. I began reading Peter Seibel's book "Practical Common Lisp",
> some Paul Graham's essays, and what really helped me at first was
> David Touretzky's book Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
> Computing which I'm halfway through.
>
> I think I have the theory on lisp down but I want to start real
> programming examples.
>
> 1. I've been told emacs is the best environment to program lisp, but
> I'm just lost with Linux and tarballs and what not. I have installed
> Ubuntu, have emacs running, but slime??? Is there an easy beginner's
> guide or download? There was one video on youtube on how to do it but
> the guy was like a wizard going 100 mph 0.0 Is there another
> environment?
> 2. While I'm familiar with Turing Completeness saying what you can do
> with one computer/language, you should be able to do with another, do
> you think Lisp offers a significant advantages still in the modern
> age?
>
> Thank you for any help,
> WT
I'm in the process of learning Lisp too.
One option you might want to consider, as you seem to be accustomed to
MS Windows, is LispIDE plus some free console based Common Lisp
implementation, like SBCL (they have a pre-release version), GCL,
Clozure. Though LispIDE is very basic, it works surprisingly well for
me. Another option is purchasing a students license for Corman Lisp
which is designed specifically for Windows. It is much cheaper than
the other commercial implementations. It also has a 30 day trial.
As for a book, I found that "Common Lisp - An Interactive Approach" is
very good for giving you starting practical experience. I'm half-way
through the book and "Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
Computing"is next on my reading list . There are a lot of drills which
are designed to give you experience not only with the language, but
also with the environment of your choice. You'll spend more time with
the exercises than with reading ;). The only problem is that it has
been written before ANSI Common Lisp, so there are some minor
differences, which you should have no problem detecting after reading
PCL.
Hope this helps.
MishoM <···············@gmail.com> writes:
> One option you might want to consider, as you seem to be accustomed to
> MS Windows, is LispIDE plus some free console based Common Lisp
> implementation, like SBCL (they have a pre-release version), GCL,
> Clozure.
There is also the Personal edition of Lispworks product, which is free
and whose limitations shouldn't get in the way of learning lisp.
Similarly for Allegro's Express Common Lisp product.
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
Thomas A. Russ wrote:
> MishoM <···············@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> One option you might want to consider, as you seem to be accustomed to
>> MS Windows, is LispIDE plus some free console based Common Lisp
>> implementation, like SBCL (they have a pre-release version), GCL,
>> Clozure.
>
> There is also the Personal edition of Lispworks product, which is free
> and whose limitations shouldn't get in the way of learning lisp.
> Similarly for Allegro's Express Common Lisp product.
I think ACL has the edge here. The editor by default operates in windows
classic mode, and it has a project manager and gui builder (not that I
like the latter, but refugees from impoverished languages might). Plus
all the "find X" functions come in the form of helpful dialogs. Free
AllegroGraph, too, albeit limited.
But LW is certainly a good second place.
kt
Kenneth Tilton wrote:
> Thomas A. Russ wrote:
>> MishoM <···············@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> One option you might want to consider, as you seem to be accustomed to
>>> MS Windows, is LispIDE plus some free console based Common Lisp
>>> implementation, like SBCL (they have a pre-release version), GCL,
>>> Clozure.
>>
>> There is also the Personal edition of Lispworks product, which is free
>> and whose limitations shouldn't get in the way of learning lisp.
>> Similarly for Allegro's Express Common Lisp product.
>
> I think ACL has the edge here. The editor by default operates in windows
> classic mode, and it has a project manager and gui builder (not that I
> like the latter, but refugees from impoverished languages might). Plus
> all the "find X" functions come in the form of helpful dialogs. Free
> AllegroGraph, too, albeit limited.
>
> But LW is certainly a good second place.
>
> kt
When I started with Lisp, ACL was easier choice, but since I've moved to
use emacs more and more with other lisps, LispWorks's IDE seems more
natural.
One thing that bothers me in LW IDE is that Undo does not work always.