
Land of Lisp: Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time - dpapathanasiou
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593272006
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drcode
Hi- Just saw this post- this is my book...

I'm finishing the last chapters this week and then there is still tons of
editing ahead- The release date will be March next year!

It's going to be a FAT book with lots of games, will cover all the interesting
parts of Lisp programming, including full coverage of functional programming,
macros, and a lot lot more. Also, it has a zillion cartoons and illustrations.

I wanted to write a Lisp book that puts FUN first- I hope you will enjoy my
book!

\- Conrad Barski

~~~
zoba
I tried for a while (unsuccessfully) to get any sort of graphics working with
Lisp. Do any of the games in here use graphics? I feel like some really
awesome "math art" could be made with Lisp.

~~~
aerique
You should check out lispbuilder-sdl or RLX. (I'm also working on CL bindings
to Ogre but they're not really ready for public consumption.)

~~~
justinhj
lispbuilder-sdl is fairly mature to the point that it even has a user manual

[http://code.google.com/p/lispbuilder/wiki/UsingLispbuilderSD...](http://code.google.com/p/lispbuilder/wiki/UsingLispbuilderSDL)

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ktf
Hi folks, I'm working with Conrad on editing this book. If you're interested,
you can keep your eye on the Land of Lisp page at the No Starch Press website:

<http://nostarch.com/lisp.htm>

We'll have an updated table of contents up fairly soon, and you'll be able to
pre-order it as it gets closer to release. We'll also probably post some
advanced samples as we move forward, so be sure to check back every once in a
while.

Conrad's doing a great job, and it's going to be a really fun book!

Keith Fancher, No Starch Press

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dpapathanasiou
Barski's website is also worth a visit: <http://www.lisperati.com/>

~~~
icey
It's worth a few visits. There's a ton of really interesting content on Dr.
Barski's site, and the illustrations are fun :D

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alrex021
Funny, I just bought the old classic that I never got a chance to read:

"Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common
Lisp" by Peter Norving

[http://www.amazon.com/Paradigms-Artificial-Intelligence-
Prog...](http://www.amazon.com/Paradigms-Artificial-Intelligence-Programming-
Studies/dp/1558601910)

Guess Lisp is 'really' making a come back.

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IsaacL
It says it contains an evolution simulator? Oddly enough, I was thinking of
something like this as a project to learn Clojure. Anyone know what that
section of the book was like?

~~~
drcode
I might be able to answer that :)

It's an implementation of Dewdney's classic article "Simulated evolution:
wherein bugs learn to hunt bacteria"

What's cool is that it lends itself to a very pithy implementation in Lisp
that runs right in the REPL, with ASCII graphics.

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arithmetic
What is the pre-requisite for reading this book? I'm mainly curious to see if
this will be a useful way for beginners (such as kids) to start learning
computer science. Given that many of us learnt computer science by writing
games and other fun utilities, I'm hoping this will be a good CS beginner's
book (and a fun one at that).

~~~
drcode
I tried to make it accessible to beginning programmers, but some advanced
stuff is covered in this text and I it would have been hard to assume zero
programming knowledge and cover everything. I think you'd need at least some
programming experience in some other language in your past to feel comfortable
with this book.

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dzlobin
I'm angry I have to wait a year to buy this book!

~~~
drcode
Sorry it's taking me so long :)

~~~
dzlobin
Better next year then never! I wish the authors of all the books we are
interested in answered all of our questions so quicky and personally. Keep up
the great work.

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Novash
Do not forget to post here when the book is released. I will be sure to buy it
by then.

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dkersten
Is this Common Lisp, or what?

I'm personally learning some Clojure at the moment and loving it so far.

~~~
drcode
Yes, it's a book on Common Lisp. However, I tried to emphasize techniques that
are relevant for the "modern dialects" like Clojure.

For instance, I implement a Clojure-style sequence library using Lisp macros
towards the end of the book to implement lazy evaluation for a boardgame AI
engine.

~~~
dkersten
Excellent, thanks for the additional information.

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agrinshtein
@Dr.Code - it seems that this book could be a tool for people to learn how to
program, not necessarily targeting people who already know how to program and
just want to learn Lisp. Am I correct?

~~~
drcode
I tried to make it readable for beginners, but I'm hesitant to say that it
would be an easy book for someone who truly has _zero_ past programming
experience.

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grosales
This is awesome! I have it in my wish list ready to buy as soon as It's out.
I'll also make sure to be in the next Fringe DC meeting.

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boblol123
Would a beginner be able to pick up this book easily? Would someone who knows
of/about functional languages but not used them be able to pick up this book
easily?

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maxer
Never been interested in learning lisp but from the comments and the table of
contents of the book I may give it a try.

