
Some Lisp books (and then some) - raju
http://blog.fogus.me/2012/07/25/some-lisp-books-and-then-some/
======
brudgers
> _"Some books are worth any price"_

 _On Lisp_ is available for free download.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html>

So is McCarthy's _Lisp Programmer's Manual_

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%...](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf)

Much of _Let Over Lambda_ is available here:

<http://letoverlambda.com/textmode.cl/guest/toc>

~~~
psykotic
Let Over Lambda is a fantastic read. Don't make the mistake of writing it off
as I did due to the author's triumphant tone. Indeed, the rhetoric is so over
the top it is often indistinguishable from parody. He is the Ayn Rand of
Common Lisp. But if you can get over that, you will find a range of unusual
macrological acrobatics on display that even veteran Lispers will appreciate.

~~~
brudgers
Most Lisp books seem to begin like the opening sequence of _Quincy, ME_ \-
similar to forensic medicine, Lisp is not for everyone. But the rewards may
include a sailboat, white wine, and pleasant company.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXf4tV_aeDc>

~~~
psykotic
Oh, the rhetoric is arrogant and self-congratulatory even by the standards of
Lisp books. It's either amusing or aggravating, depending on your point of
view.

------
psykotic
The Architecture of Symbolic Computers was not known to me and looks very
interesting. Unfortunately, it's long out of print and the price for used
copies on AbeBooks is high. If anyone has a copy in the Seattle area they'd
like to donate for the general good of hackerdom, I have a paper guillotine
and an industrial sheet-feed scanner at work. I've used them before to
digitize parts of my personal library. If not, I might at some point buy a
used copy.

~~~
kabdib
[PM'd you; I have a copy I can surrender for rendering :) ]

~~~
andrewcooke
does that mean the results will be shared? not sure if this is legal, but i
would be interested in the final pdf (or whatever)... andrew@acooke.org -
thanks. (i am getting upvotes, so others too...)

------
brudgers
The two more Lisp books:

Paul Graham's _ANSI Common Lisp_ \- I purchased a used copy from Amazon. What
I like is that it is a text book and has true exercises and not just code to
type in. The downside is that complex ideas are often described briefly.

Peter Seibel's _Practical Common Lisp_ has been a useful supplement because it
goes into some topics in greater depth (i.e. it offers a more gentle
introduction). I've been using the online version [which was the subject of an
HN thread recently]:

<http://gigamonkeys.com/book/>

What is particularly nice is that it formats very legibly on my phone, making
it great for reading any where (except the bathtub). The lack of exercise
problems is a bit of a drawback for the way I learn.

~~~
hntester123
I had read some of Practical Common Lisp, found it good (I'm new to Lisp
still, though have dabbled in it over the years a bit) and plan to read the
rest sometime later. Do you happen to have a link to that HN thread that
discusses the book, or remember (part of) the title of the thread? Would like
to read it.

~~~
brudgers
Turns out I found the book through the article, which was about Peter Seibel.

However, here's the link to the item:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4186129>

~~~
hntester123
Thanks for the link.

------
limist
Well, someone's gotta' mention SICP, the book that has probably turned more
people on to Lisp than any other:

<http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-4.html>

~~~
nessus42
Indeed! It's hard to believe that SICP is not on the OP's list. It should be
on _any_ list of books on Lisp.

~~~
silentbicycle
It's arguably less of a Lisp book, and more of an excellent book on
programming that uses (a dialect of) Lisp.

------
rabidsnail
"Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common
Lisp" by Peter Norvig is also excellent.

~~~
andrewcooke
seconded. there's also the clos book (amop), which is generally recognised as
a classic (i think? personally i own a copy but didn't finish it...)

clos book -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_the_Metaobject_Proto...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_the_Metaobject_Protocol)

apropos absolutely nothing, except that i finished reading it last night, the
book (and manual for) ggplot2 is both a good introduction to that software
(ggplot2 generates plots in r) and would serve as an excellent start for
someone who wanted to implement the same in other languages. the whole thing
is based on a domain model for plotting, which makes a huge amount of sense.
after reading it, i am convinced every language will eventually have a similar
package/dsl for plotting. i don't think even incanter (r in clojure, sort-of)
has a version yet, so as far as i know there is no ggplot2 in any lisp. it
would be a great project for someone...

this is (a review of) the domain model -
<http://www.jstatsoft.org/v17/b03/paper>

~~~
disgruntledphd2
I completely agree with you on ggplot, its amazing. I was also thinking of
implementing it in clojure, but don't really have the time right now, due to
work and PhD. The book by Wilkinson might be better though, as that's where
Hadley got it from.

------
smokel
While searching for more information on these books, I stumbled upon "Land of
Lisp" (<http://landoflisp.com/>), which might be nice.

~~~
tsm
That's a great book for new programmers, but if you already know you like Lisp
and have the experience to be able to dive into PCL or PAIP or whatever, LoL
is unnecessary. The books in the OP are valuable for _any_ programmer.

------
abecedarius
Wow, someone else who's read the Sokolowski book. I agree that it's very, very
good, though it's been so long that I'm not sure how much it has to offer
people today. (I don't own a copy.)

