Ways to improve my understanding of CLisp and AI

Yves S. Garret

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Aug 6, 2012, 10:21:02 AM8/6/12

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Hi all.

I'm learning CLisp from the gigamonkeys book that's available online for free. What I'd like to know is how can improve my understanding of Lisp as well as how to write code for applications that use Artificial Intelligence? Say I would like to make an artificial neural network, just for kicks (this is purely an exercise for the sake of self-improvement, nothing more, nothing less), that filters spam or tries to study patterns in the movements of financial markets.

What steps can I take to improve my understanding of these two things? Any projects or applications I can learn from? Any suggestions?

Pascal J. Bourguignon

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Aug 6, 2012, 11:03:08 AM8/6/12

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"Yves S. Garret" <yoursurr...@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi all.
>
> I'm learning CLisp from the gigamonkeys book that's available
> online for free.

No, you're not.

You're learning Common Lisp (CL).

Clisp is a specific implementation of Common Lisp, but ther are several
other implementations.

Saying that you're learning clisp, is like saying you're learning gcc.

> What I'd like to know is how can improve my understanding of Lisp
> as well as how to write code for applications that use Artificial
> Intelligence? Say I would like to make an artificial neural
> network, just for kicks (this is purely an exercise for the sake of
> self-improvement, nothing more, nothing less), that filters spam or
> tries to study patterns in the movements of financial markets.
> What steps can I take to improve my understanding of these two
> things? Any projects or applications I can learn from? Any
> suggestions?

You could read PAIP "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming:
Case Studies in Common Lisp".

--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
A bad day in () is better than a good day in {}.

Yves S. Garret

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Aug 6, 2012, 4:53:15 PM8/6/12

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Thanks for letting me know about the differences. I know about that AI book, it seems to be quite good based on Amazon reviews.

However, I'd like to know about what others have done other than reading from a book and trying what they've read. Maybe sign on to some project? Or created little apps just for the heck of it in order to become more experienced?

Using Lisp in the professional sphere -- at least when I looked -- seems like almost some organisations are afraid to even admit that they use the language, otherwise I'd try to sign up with them.

Mirko Vukovic

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Aug 7, 2012, 12:21:57 AM8/7/12

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I lurked for a long time before diving in. I do modeling and data analysis at work, and I finally switched my work from IDL into common lisp. It was far from painless, and I am not sure whether it was worth it (time wise). But I love the expressiveness of the language, and I'm not sorry that I switched.

Mirko

ccc31807

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Aug 31, 2012, 2:45:12 PM8/31/12

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On Monday, August 6, 2012 10:21:02 AM UTC-4, Yves S. Garret wrote:
> What steps can I take to improve my understanding of these two things? Any projects or applications I can learn from? Any suggestions?

Yes!

'Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming' by Peter Norvig
'Land of Lisp' by Conrad Barski.
'Elements of Artificial Intelligence Using Common Lisp' by Steven Tanimoto

CC.

Yves S. Garret

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Sep 6, 2012, 10:23:54 AM9/6/12

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This piece seems to deal with neural networks, something I rarely see covered elsewhere (have not heard about the last 2 in your list, I could be wrong).

http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Intelligence-Modern-Approach-Edition/dp/0136042597/ref=pd_sim_b_8

Something tells me that when I start diving into AI, neural networks will be the highest mountain to climb.