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New to Lisp

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Andrei Zernoveanu

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Mar 18, 2005, 1:17:35 AM3/18/05
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Hi all,
I am new to Lisp. My background is mostly in java but I became very
interested in Lisp while reading about it's unique features. So.. I'm just
trying to wrap my mind around it. As you all know, this may be very
confusing at the beginning. I am not worried about learning the syntax (I've
found some good books on line) or things you can do with Lisp. What holds me
up right now is understanding how to set up my environment correctly. I've
downloaded emacs an kind of got it to work, but I am not sure if the errors
I'm getting are due to my lack of Lisp knowledge or it's something I did not
set up correctly. So, any resources for somebody that sees Lisp for the
first time would be greatly appreciated; things like how the language is
build, what are the file types and their roles, libraries, how do you
structure your program, the Lisp 101 if you will.

Thank you,

andrei


Svein Ove Aas

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Mar 18, 2005, 8:58:09 AM3/18/05
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"Andrei Zernoveanu" <zerno...@hotmail.com> writes:

Look up gigamonkeys.com/book. It should fit the bill; the first
chapter tells you how to set things up, and the rest of the book
teaches you most of what you need to know to use the language right.

Glad to have you on board!

David Magda

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Mar 18, 2005, 3:58:40 PM3/18/05
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Svein Ove Aas <svei...@aas.no> writes:

> Look up gigamonkeys.com/book. It should fit the bill; the first
> chapter tells you how to set things up, and the rest of the book
> teaches you most of what you need to know to use the language
> right.
>
> Glad to have you on board!

Better yet, buy the book and support the author. :)

--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI

David Steuber

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Mar 18, 2005, 9:13:42 PM3/18/05
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"Andrei Zernoveanu" <zerno...@hotmail.com> writes:

> So, any resources for somebody that sees Lisp for the first time
> would be greatly appreciated; things like how the language is build,
> what are the file types and their roles, libraries, how do you
> structure your program, the Lisp 101 if you will.

The above has inspired me to try and put together a high level
overview of what the development process is like in Lisp. It's not
meant to be a tutorial or anything quite like that. The idea is to
show a newcomer what to expect, at least in the free Lisp world.

Would anyone care to give me some feedback on it?

http://www.david-steuber.com/Lisp/Development/

--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1

Bulent Murtezaoglu

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Mar 19, 2005, 4:14:26 AM3/19/05
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>>>>> "DS" == David Steuber <da...@david-steuber.com> writes:
[...]
DS> Would anyone care to give me some feedback on it?

DS> http://www.david-steuber.com/Lisp/Development/

Emre Sevinc prepared something like this for a Turkish audience. I
made a Flash movie out of a simple emacs session (mostly me fumbling
around as a proof of concept test for the screen capture tool!) but it
went over very well. I was intending to hook into emacs and put up a
little window that shows the key-chord as I went through Slime
functionality, but haven't had time yet.

It's here (animation at the bottom):

http://ileriseviye.org/arasayfa.php?inode=lisp-install.html

It would be great if we could come up with a more illustrative/entertaining
and visual intro to slime/cl/emacs usage. People like _seeing_ how
things get done.

cheers,

BM

Martin DeMello

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Mar 19, 2005, 1:59:00 PM3/19/05
to
David Steuber <da...@david-steuber.com> wrote:
>
> The above has inspired me to try and put together a high level
> overview of what the development process is like in Lisp. It's not
> meant to be a tutorial or anything quite like that. The idea is to
> show a newcomer what to expect, at least in the free Lisp world.
>
> Would anyone care to give me some feedback on it?
>
> http://www.david-steuber.com/Lisp/Development/

From a newcomer's perspective: I think you should mention Lisp in a Box
in the slime section, and ASDF could probably have done with a section
of its own. Looks pretty good otherwise.

martin

Alan Crowe

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Mar 20, 2005, 8:58:11 AM3/20/05
to
Andrei Zernoveanu wrote
> So, any resources for somebody that sees Lisp for the
> first time would be greatly appreciated; things like how
> the language is build, what are the file types and their
> roles, libraries, how do you structure your program, the
> Lisp 101 if you will.

This page

http://alan.crowe.name/lisp/before-you-start.html

is very brief. I wrote it to cover certain key gaps,
things that everybody knows, and which they consequently
forget to mention to beginnners.

Comments please.

Alan Crowe
Edinbrugh
Scotland

Svein Ove Aas

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Mar 20, 2005, 9:09:46 AM3/20/05
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Alan Crowe <al...@cawtech.freeserve.co.uk> writes:

> This page
>
> http://alan.crowe.name/lisp/before-you-start.html
>
> is very brief. I wrote it to cover certain key gaps,
> things that everybody knows, and which they consequently
> forget to mention to beginnners.
>
> Comments please.

Somewhat outdated. These days I'd recommend using Slime; you should at
least mention it.

Brad Anderson

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Mar 20, 2005, 2:30:02 PM3/20/05
to
David Steuber wrote:
> "Andrei Zernoveanu" <zerno...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>So, any resources for somebody that sees Lisp for the first time
>>would be greatly appreciated; things like how the language is build,
>>what are the file types and their roles, libraries, how do you
>>structure your program, the Lisp 101 if you will.
>
>
> The above has inspired me to try and put together a high level
> overview of what the development process is like in Lisp. It's not
> meant to be a tutorial or anything quite like that. The idea is to
> show a newcomer what to expect, at least in the free Lisp world.
>
> Would anyone care to give me some feedback on it?
>
> http://www.david-steuber.com/Lisp/Development/
>

Has this link been up and down since your post? I can't seem to get to
it, and have tried different times the past day or so...

BA

David Steuber

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Mar 20, 2005, 5:56:47 PM3/20/05
to
Brad Anderson <br...@dsource.org> writes:

> David Steuber wrote:
> > Would anyone care to give me some feedback on it?
> > http://www.david-steuber.com/Lisp/Development/
>
> Has this link been up and down since your post? I can't seem to get
> to it, and have tried different times the past day or so...

Not that I'm aware of. I access usenet through the same machine that
serves my site, so I am generally aware of when something is wrong. I
also currently have a fractal program chewing up 100% of my CPU for a
while, but that doesn't seem to affect Apache or Emacs (perhaps a bit
more latency with the key strokes).

Who knows with the Internet?

I do have this habit of editing my site directly rather than a staging
version that then gets published. So odd effects can be seen if I am
actively editing a page that someone requests.

Andrei Zernoveanu

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Mar 23, 2005, 12:59:08 AM3/23/05
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Hey guys,

Thanks for all your replies. I really appreciate it. I've been vacationing
for the last 4 days (S.F. is awesome), but I will go through all the posts
in the next couple of days.

Once again,

Thank you,

andrei

"Andrei Zernoveanu" <zerno...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Andrei Zernoveanu

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Mar 23, 2005, 9:33:45 PM3/23/05
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It's a very good overview. I am using the book on gigamonkeys.com that Svein
posted and I've got my environment running. I am moving along understanding
the language better.

Thanks a lot guys,

andrei

"David Steuber" <da...@david-steuber.com> wrote in message
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