

How To Get Started With Lisp - m3mb3r
http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/12/lisp-getting-started.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb%2Fhack+%28ReadWriteHack%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

======
mahmud
Meh, this is pure pandering and whoring for eye-balls. RWW finally discovered
that "Lisp" is an easy ticket to front-page, pretty much anywhere.

------
aberkowitz
While I have not yet finished Dr Conrad Barski's "Land of Lisp", I would
highly recommend it to anyone interested in an introductory book as I am
really enjoying it.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
_Land of Lisp_ is probably the best computer book I've read in the 5 or 6
years I've been programming. It manages to be informative and fun at the same
time. Where most books teach you how to write boring crap like JSON parsers,
LoL walks you through Hunt the Wumpus and teaches you a couple of useful graph
algorithms along the way. It devotes a chapter to web applications where you
write a web interface using a web server you wrote yourself for a game you
wrote yourself. There's even a program that uses a very rudimentary
evolutionary algorithm to evolve organisms in a virtual world.

Thanks to LoL, I dug up archives of computer magazines from the seventies and
eighties[1] ( _Creative Computing_ , _Compute!_ etc.) The "hacker spirit" sure
has changed in the last 30 years. Those magazines were playful. They even had
entire sections devoted to computer games and interesting puzzles you could
solve using a computer (Core War, for example, first appeared in one such
magazine). These days people write Twitter clients and todo lists that run on
Google App Engine.

LoL is one of very few books published in the last decade that capture the
hacker spirit. It ranks right up there with __why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby_
and _Programming Perl_ [2].

Right now I'm having a blast re-writing old BASIC games in Lisp and then
writing programs to beat those games. Most games are easy to beat, but some of
them can pose quite a challenge. Fun times :D

\---

[1] <http://www.atariarchives.org/> and <http://www.atarimagazines.com/>

[2] I don't actually program Perl. I just read a few chapters from
_Programming Perl_ one lazy afternoon.

------
ohyes
As someone who programs common lisp daily, I kind of hate scheme. (As an
aside, I've had the enlightenment thing a couple of times, also, and it hasn't
caused me to quit my job and write viaweb. (It did make me a better lover,
however; YMMV)).

Not that it is a terrible idea to start with scheme or Clojure, but scheme
seems too pure (I like a REAL macro the same way I like a woman who knows what
she wants...).

Clojure was too much Java last time I checked (Stack-trace of doom! Where is
my continuable error? God! My eyes! (awesome otherwise, let me know when this
has been fixed)).

Anyway, the point being, these all seem to be scheme links, and I've never
gotten anything done in scheme other than admiring how fucking beautiful it is
(seriously, great trellises).

Here's my guide: 1.) install linux 2.) get sbcl 3.) get emacs and slime. add
something like this to your .emacs (defun sbcl () (show-paren-mode) (setq
inferior-lisp-program "sbcl") (add-to-list 'load-path "~/emacs/slime")
(require 'slime) (slime-setup)) (sbcl)

4.) Maybe get/install Quicklisp.

5.) Hack hack hack. Just be stupidly prolific in your spare cycles. Impress
your friends, classmates, coworkers, etc. They'll be confused as fuck about
the syntax, but you'll know it is no different from any other syntax. (Also
you will program fast as hell, you will be the Mercury to their Hephaestus)

6.) Make a modest salary.

~~~
mahmud
I disagree with every sylable in this comment.

Scheme is beautiful. Clojure is promising. The JVM is a fine platform, and
Java itself is a decent language for the experienced engineer. You don't need
Linux to hack in Common Lisp; I have used win32 for my Lisp apps in the last
10 years.

You don't need to make a "modest" salary; I waited tables for $6/hr, and I
made six figures .. neither changed my programming ability, Lisp or otherwise,
I am still the same kludgemeister.

~~~
ohyes
When did I imply otherwise? I had no idea that I had such ability to be so
offensive in things that I neither typed, said, or spake.

Apparently differing opinions are meant to be beaten out through karmic
justice.

It also seems that you agree with my assertions that scheme is beautiful and
Clojure is promising but not there yet. So you don't disagree with every
syllable of it, at least technically.

So wtf with the hostility?

Also, this post was entirely based on my experience.

Keyword: MINE. I make a modest salary. That's the truth. $60,000 is not
rolling in dough. Why would you even take issue with that?

I don't get it.

~~~
mahmud
Thus far, we learned about your sexual prowess, your tastes in women and your
salary. Yet not a single actionable insight or intelligence on Lisp: the
subject matter of this thread.

~~~
ohyes
You haven't disagreed with me in a reasonable way. I make a flippant remark
about fabled 'lisp enlightenment' and it becomes the entirety of my post?

I gave a (reasonable) guide to my experience with lisp, state that I like REAL
macros, say pretty much the same thing that you repeated about scheme (and
Clojure), give a brief setup guide to emacs/slime, and say to program a lot
(because programming a lot is the only thing that makes you good).

AND SOMEHOW I HAVE ONLY TOLD YOU ABOUT MY DICK AND MY SALARY?

Whatever, I'm being trolled.

Good day, sir.

