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Some of the tutorials in the book use some fairy awkward conventions (e.g. using lists of symbols to create strings).
I enjoyed the book, but had to unlearn some things afterwards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I second the recommendation for Practical Common Lisp, even for complete beginners and newcomers to Lisp. It covers the very basics, and the writing style is accessible and patient.
Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? ;) Maybe there are only ones you're not ready for yet... (I've been unsuccessfully searching for a hardcover of Art of the Metaobject Protocol for a while, I can make myself ready for it once I have it.) In HN tradition where we all recommend every book we've ever read similar to the submitted one (and Land of Lisp is worth reading), an overlooked recently published booklet I…
Yes, there exists a certain a really awful book from the 1980's about making your own Lisp in C, which has recently been reprinted in essentially its original form.
As someone that started learning lisp with this book I recommend not starting with this book, and instead reading Practical Common Lisp. Some of the tutorials in the book use some fairy awkward conventions (e.g. using lists of symbols to create strings). I enjoyed the book, but had to unlearn some things afterwards.
The whole Common Lisp learning is hindered by suddenly you have a function that do magic. And nil does not help.
Really wish there is a lisp book learning using the kernel (lisp 1.5 which can be easily implemented using itself).
This book is well worn, dog eared, and on my home office book shelf. While many people criticize it, for legitimate reasons, it is still a fun and wonderful journey through Common Lisp. I wish more books were written in this irreverent and whimsical style. If however you want a more traditional and "from zero" introduction to Lisp, then "Common LISP - A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation"[0] may be better. I…
1. Kaufman, Roger. A FORTRAN Coloring Book (probably the first funny programming book -- from 1978).
2. Lipovača, Miran. Learn You A Haskell for Great Good.
3. Hebert, Fred. Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good (inspired by the Haskell book).
4. Felleisen, Matthias. Realm of Racket (basically Land of Lisp for Racket. Oddly, nobody's done a "Commonwealth of Clojure" or "Society of Scheme" yet.)
This book is well worn, dog eared, and on my home office book shelf. While many people criticize it, for legitimate reasons, it is still a fun and wonderful journey through Common Lisp. I wish more books were written in this irreverent and whimsical style. If however you want a more traditional and "from zero" introduction to Lisp, then "Common LISP - A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation"[0] may be better. I…
If you like this sort of thing, here are some others in a similar humorous style for other languages. 1. Kaufman, Roger. A FORTRAN Coloring Book (probably the first funny programming book -- from 1978). 2. Lipovača, Miran. Learn You A Haskell for Great Good. 3. Hebert, Fred. Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good (inspired by the Haskell book). 4. Felleisen, Matthias. Realm of Racket (basically Land of Lisp for Racket.…
Author of LOL here, if there are any questions!