There are multiple versions of Lisp. Multiple compilers. What is a good one for someone new to pick?
I use VS Code and Vim. Are they suitable for learning Lisp?
Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
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Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#2Emacs will probably be better in the long run for Lisp, but you can use any editor to begin.
For Common Lisp, SBCL [1] is probably the best free option. If you want to learn Scheme instead, Chicken Scheme [2] and Racket [3] are popular and good choices.
[1]: http://www.sbcl.org/
[2]: https://call-cc.org/
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#3Emacs and slime are great for lisp, but my experience is that learning all three at once is too much.
Stick to vscode and install the lisp extensions (or sublime and sublime repl was what I learnt on) and work through the lisp koans (search on github you’ll find the repo).
Once you have the basics down then look into setting up slime and jumping down the emacs rabbit hole.
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#4If you mean Common Lisp, I'd say install SBCL and start playing with with the repl. Choose the editor you know best; even notepad is useful to copy and paste expressions to/from the repl. Any editor that's suited for programming will have a way to send expressions to the repl with a keystroke, which is much more comfortable. So basically, just pick VSCode.
With that, you're ready to go. Take just one book and work through it, you don't need the best book, but a book will be better structured and more complete than multiple blog posts from different people. Practical Common Lisp (http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/) is good and freely available. I used ANSI Common Lisp (http://www.paulgraham.com/acl.html), from Paul Graham (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg), long time ago and it's also good.
If you are open to non-common-lisp lisps, I'd say pick up clojure instead of common lisp, it's more modern and thus you will find more community and up-to-date resources. Clojure for the Brave and True is a book that has been praised, but I did not read it. It has some jokes and humorous examples that might or might not suit you.
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#5Common Lisp programmer here.
https://stevelosh.com/blog/2018/08/a-road-to-common-lisp/
That's the best article I know on the matter.
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#6Is there a good argument against Clojure in this case? My impression is that it's a good lisp and you can get actual work done in it which is an advantage over some of the other options.
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#7If you mean Common Lisp, I'd say install SBCL and start playing with with the repl. Choose the editor you know best; even notepad is useful to copy and paste expressions to/from the repl. Any editor that's suited for programming will have a way to send expressions to the repl with a keystroke, which is much more comfortable. So basically, just pick VSCode. With that, you're ready to go. Take just one book and work th…
VSCode has a Swank client that has a functioning REPL along with other goodies for interactive programming.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rheller....
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#8Is there a good argument against Clojure in this case? My impression is that it's a good lisp and you can get actual work done in it which is an advantage over some of the other options.
One argument I can think of is that if your problem is not shaped in a functional way, then a functional programming language might be a poor fit for the job.
Common Lisp is multi-paradigm language that is pretty bendy with regard to absorbing new ways of doing programming. It gets actual work done as well.
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#9drracket is one of the more impressive pedagological IDEs i’ve ever seen.
Re: Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
#10On Lisp by Paul Graham is a good start: http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html
Edit: I meant ANSI Common Lisp. Thanks everyone!
(I wouldn't even recommend On Lisp as a second text, too much macrology).