Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation

LISP sympathizer here:

I don't need yet another theoretical exercise in how to do computation in LISP, I need a concrete example of how to load and use getopts LISP code to construct command line programs in CCL (for example with CLON and CCL). Programs written in ANSI Common LISP which behave like every other program found in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin.

What LISP needs is more concrete examples solving everyday problems, like how to prop up a LISP web server? How to run LISP applications from one? How to perform string manipulation? Data extraction? How to connect to an Oracle database? SQLite database? How to package one's finished application into a pkgsrc or an RPM package? And so on, and so forth.

I'm over the concepts, but that doesn't mean I know how to solve everyday problems with the language, especially a programming language significantly different from any other programming language out there.

I spent countless hours trying to figure out how to get the shell program's getopts equivalent in LISP without writing my own getops implementation from scratch. No joy. The learning curve for writing a useful program is steep, and examples would give LISP adoption an enormous boost, like the Practical Common LISP book does (but it only solves one practical task throughout the entire book). Most people using a computer want to solve everyday tasks, so the examples should be task oriented, not to mention that dissecting the finished product is a great way to teach the language and the concepts, as well as doing things the LISP way. The link between UNIX and LISP knowledge is missing.

If anything on the BEAM ecosystem interest you I highlight recommend you check out LFE! (=

There are no symbols! you have lots of little processes with lots of connections between them and you change the strengths of the connections and that's how we learn things.

> The link between UNIX and LISP knowledge is missing.

That's where TXR comes in. A pragmatic scripting language geared toward the POSIX platform (with a half decent Windows port).

> I spent countless hours trying to figure out how to get the shell program's getopts equivalent in LISP

This is a nuisance area in developing utilities that are usable by others, and an area in which consistency with established conventions is required. For that reason, I included option processing in TXR Lisp.

http://nongnu.org/txr/txr-manpage.html#N-02C70C38

I second this suggestion. I also found this book very useful for some of the things you requested: https://leanpub.com/lovinglisp