Starting out - how to?
inovica
discovered Lisp after reading some articles about it (mainly to do with
Yahoo! Store). Is there a newby guide anywhere that someone can point me
to where I can try a tutorial and hopefully it will show me how to install
a copy on either a Windows or Linux machine.
Appreciate any advice
Thanks
Ade
Thomas Schilling
Oh, you would like "Becoming popular" and are looking forward to "Beating
the Averages". :)
Tuts: "Successful Lisp" http://www.psg.com/~dlamkins/sl/contents.html
Peter's Book (in progress) http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book
Impls:
See http://www.alu.org/table/systems.htm#vendor
and http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation
and you'll soon get a link to LispInABox ...
To get your way around see: www.cliki.net.
Have Fun.
Svein Ove Aas
For a quick start, try Lisp-inna-box: http://www.mapcar.org/~mrd/lispbox/
I'm sure others will point you to the proper resources.
inovica
good start. As a non-programmer myself I'm trying to look into things
that the team might be interested in. I have had some initial negative
feedback when I mentioned Lisp, but I want to look deeper before taking it
back to them :)
Thanks!
Ade
Thomas Schilling
> As a non-programmer myself I'm trying to look into things
> that the team might be interested in. I have had some initial negative
> feedback when I mentioned Lisp, but I want to look deeper before taking it
> back to them :)
If you're looking for arguments convincing working programmers you might
also want to take a look at the lisp features mentioned here:
http://groups.google.de
groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=fb0fb805.0405130518.26607bcc
40posting.google.com&rnum=7&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dlecture
2Bgroup:comp.lang.lisp.*%26hl%3Dde%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group
3Dcomp.lang.lisp.*%26selm%3Dfb0fb805.0405130518.26607bcc
2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D7
(it's one long link)
Kenny Tilton
inovica wrote:
> Great. Thanks to both Tiomas and Svein for these references. Gives me a
> good start. As a non-programmer myself...
Management has found Lisp! Game over. Please tell me you have vast
dictatorial powers in your (very big, well-heeled) organization.
> I'm trying to look into things
> that the team might be interested in. I have had some initial negative
> feedback when I mentioned Lisp,
<g> You have just discovered the only downside to Lisp. See the very
last entry in these survey excerpts:
http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
In that list of excerpts, click on any author to get to their full
response. That can be useful if the excerpt sounds too rah-rah and you
want some substance to back it up.
[warning: if you start poking around in the survey and find your way to
various cross-indexing pages, um, the underlying software is broken, so
they give incomplete listings. The excerpts are linked manually and
include 95% of respondees.]
Something for the foot-draggers to consider: I started the survey just a
couple of years ago or less, and only because I started to notice a
trickle of newbies appearing here in cll. That trickle is now a pretty
steady albeit still small stream. A big new book called "Practical Lisp"
is due out this year. Learning Lisp now gives them a leg up in this now
highly competitive job market should Lisp take off.
To a degree I sympathize with the footdraggers, but only because I am
taking as a given their misconceptions of Lisp. Ask them to read the
survey, in which a few folks talk about how Lisp surprised them. (I know
other languages could produce such a survey, but did they know Lisp could?)
>... but I want to look deeper before taking it
> back to them :)
Just make sure you open by saying, "I know this is a crazy idea,
but...". You are probably still doomed to death by mutiny. You might
have to hire a Lispnik and start a pilot project working side by side
with the one nutjob you have who kicks and screams the least about
learning Lisp.
:)
kenny
--
Home? http://tilton-technology.com
Cells? http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Cello? http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cello/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Your Project Here! http://alu.cliki.net/Industry%20Application
Pascal Costanza
inovica wrote:
Check out http://alu.cliki.net - it lists a number of useful resources.
Pascal
--
1st European Lisp and Scheme Workshop
June 13 - Oslo, Norway - co-located with ECOOP 2004
http://www.cs.uni-bonn.de/~costanza/lisp-ecoop/
David Steuber
> I have had some initial negative feedback when I mentioned Lisp, but
> I want to look deeper before taking it back to them :)
This is a typical reaction. People will complaign that there are no
Lisp jobs, so they should stick with Java, PHP, Perl, Python, VB.NET
or whatever. As they do so, they will find their jobs going to New
Delhi and Bangalore because they have evolved into monkeys and the
Indians can do the job just as well (if not better) and much less
expensively than North Americans and Europeans.
Also with languages like Java, it takes more people to do something.
This insures job security. Well, that's what they think anyway. They
don't notice that they have been oursorced to India until it is too
late.
Hopefully by the time Lisp becomes the new language of the day, the
salaries in India will be high enough that Lisp jobs are exported to a
different country. Perhaps Iraq.
--
I wouldn't mind the rat race so much if it wasn't for all the damn cats.
Kenny Tilton
Who was the QA guy who could not get anyone in Detroit to listen to him
so he went Japan? It would be funny if China found Lisp before the Round
Eyes. Then we're toast. Well, not demon kenny, but it will be bu hao for
youse guys.
d/k
Daniel Barlow
> [warning: if you start poking around in the survey and find your way
> to various cross-indexing pages, um, the underlying software is
> broken, so they give incomplete listings. The excerpts are linked
> manually and include 95% of respondees.]
The underlying software is believed fixed as of last week, actually.
Or at least, several bugs in the underlying software were fixed;
please let me know about any remaining anomolous bits and I'll process
bug reports in my usual timely fashion(sic).
-dan
--
"please make sure that the person is your friend before you confirm"
Kenny Tilton
Daniel Barlow wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>[warning: if you start poking around in the survey and find your way
>>to various cross-indexing pages, um, the underlying software is
>>broken, so they give incomplete listings. The excerpts are linked
>>manually and include 95% of respondees.]
>
>
> The underlying software is believed fixed as of last week, actually.
> Or at least, several bugs in the underlying software were fixed;
> please let me know about any remaining anomolous bits and I'll process
> bug reports in my usual timely fashion(sic).
Yes, I saw your report and checked the RtL indexes, but they were still
coming up no good. The good news is that just now I re-saved a page with
an index ("Switch Year 1990s"?) and viola!: what looks to be the correct
results. The bad news is having to do that for all the pages which
include indexes. Any way to automate that?
kt
Reinhard Gantar
Good luck. Executive's knee-jerk reaction to Lisp is either
"Oh no, one of THOSE guys" (if they know Lisp from their time
as students or from talks to programmers over lunch)
or
"Can it link Java-Beans?" if they are the more pointy-haired
type.
However, thanks to Paul Graham, Lisp has become something of its
own fad (and I'm sort of a fashion victim, but not quite, I'm
happy to say). You seem to have some lucky punch in that your
decision-makers have heard of Yahoo-store already.
Tell them that Lisp is what Obi-Wan-Kenobi has told
Luke Skywalker about his Light-Saber: People despise it
as some curiousity from a forgotten era that is still used
only by old farts from an esoteric sect, but in fact is
radically effective and elegant. And then use The Force.
Good luck
Gantar
Reinhard Gantar
Then the last laugh would be on us, although it might taste a little
bitter. Lisp helping the Yellow Peril to steam-roller the Western
Economy -- quite a career for a "research toy from the ivory tower".
I will be the guy running around with a "See? I told you Lisp is
cool"-TShirt.
>
> d/k
>
Reinhard Gantar
>
>
> inovica wrote:
>
>> Great. Thanks to both Tiomas and Svein for these references. Gives me a
>> good start. As a non-programmer myself...
>
>
> Management has found Lisp! Game over. Please tell me you have vast
> dictatorial powers in your (very big, well-heeled) organization.
... although I feel quite good as an esoteric Lisp-monk. It is like
appreciating fringe-music ("Oh, Java is sooohhh 90ies... I stick with
the good stuff from the 50ies. Ever heard of Lisp?")
A few more libraries would not hurt, though.
>
>>
>
> Just make sure you open by saying, "I know this is a crazy idea,
> but...". You are probably still doomed to death by mutiny. You might
> have to hire a Lispnik and start a pilot project working side by side
> with the one nutjob you have who kicks and screams the least about
> learning Lisp.
I'd volunteer and work for coffee and cookies. "Just give me bread
and water..."
>
> :)
>
> kenny
>
Daniel Barlow
> Yes, I saw your report and checked the RtL indexes, but they were
> still coming up no good. The good news is that just now I re-saved a
Names ... I need names.
> page with an index ("Switch Year 1990s"?) and viola!: what looks to be
> the correct results. The bad news is having to do that for all the
> pages which include indexes. Any way to automate that?
Wouldn't you take advantage of the last dribble of my recent
motivation to fix cliki by pointing me at some examples so that I can
fix the underlying problem before returning to my shell?
Limited offer, one time only. After that it's back to trying to flay
myself alive rollerblading.
Kenny Tilton
Daniel Barlow wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>Yes, I saw your report and checked the RtL indexes, but they were
>>still coming up no good. The good news is that just now I re-saved a
>
>
> Names ... I need names.
>
>
>>page with an index ("Switch Year 1990s"?) and viola!: what looks to be
>>the correct results. The bad news is having to do that for all the
>>pages which include indexes. Any way to automate that?
>
>
> Wouldn't you take advantage of the last dribble of my recent
> motivation to fix cliki by pointing me at some examples so that I can
> fix the underlying problem before returning to my shell?
Sorry, /none/ of the pages I looked at showed the right results, so I
thought it would be easy to recreate. But everything looks great now. I
re-saved the summary page containing all the switch date indexes and
suddenly there were all the lispniks (no surprise) but also other pages
(one per switch date) now all work and even the seemingly unrelated "by
road" indexing looks to be all working. If I run across a deficiency i
will send you the page, but it looks like we're good to go.
>
> Limited offer, one time only. After that it's back to trying to flay
> myself alive rollerblading.
:) Rain storms washed gravel all over my regular path, and I skated into
it while eyeing <ahem> the scenery. Lovely, downhill faceplant onto
sharp gravel. Good thing I do not wear wristguards or I wouldn't have
these raw hamburger palms. Well, gotta resupply on "second skin"
bandages, i was one short last night. Those are great, btw, albeit pricey.
kt
Svein Ove Aas
> Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>> Yes, I saw your report and checked the RtL indexes, but they were
>> still coming up no good. The good news is that just now I re-saved a
>
> Names ... I need names.
http://alu.cliki.net/edit/Switch Date 2004
doesn't exist, which I do believe it should. I'm linking to it, for one
thing.
Edi Weitz
> Svein Ove Aas <svein+u...@brage.info> writes:
>
>> http://alu.cliki.net/edit/Switch Date 2004 doesn't exist,
>
> I believe that's mostly because nobody had created it.
>
>> which I do believe it should. I'm linking to it, for one thing.
>
> It does now. I created it a couple of hours ago (in the process
> fixing a cliki bug which may have been preventing someone else from
> creating it themselves. See, if you'd tried that it /would/ have
> been a bug ;-)
Well, the link back to the "Switch Date 2004" page from Svein Ove's
page still doesn't work. The link from Dave Robert's page does.
Cheers,
Edi.
David Steuber
> Who was the QA guy who could not get anyone in Detroit to listen to
> him so he went Japan? It would be funny if China found Lisp before the
> Round Eyes. Then we're toast. Well, not demon kenny, but it will be bu
> hao for youse guys.
I think the guy's name was Denning.
Kenny Tilton
Svein Ove Aas wrote:
Good call, I think I added it while you were typing this, and you do
come up under that index.
kenny
Kenny Tilton
David Steeper wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>Who was the QA guy who could not get anyone in Detroit to listen to
>>him so he went Japan? It would be funny if China found Lisp before the
>>Round Eyes. Then we're toast. Well, not demon kenny, but it will be bu
>>hao for youse guys.
>
>
> I think the guy's name was Denning.
>
xie xie: W. Edward Deming. http://www.isixsigma.com/
Rob Warnock
+---------------
| Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
| > Who was the QA guy who could not get anyone in Detroit to listen to
| > him so he went Japan?
|
Actually, it was Dr. W. Edwards Deming. And "Detroit" and others in the
U.S *did* listen to him during WW2, when the advances in statistical
quality control he proposed were very useful in ramping up America's
war-materiel machine. Then in post-war-reconstruction Japan, he helped
the Japanese break out of the "cheap junk" stereotype they'd been in.
But when he tried the same thing in the U.S. following his successes in
Japan, he was indeed given the cold shoulder, as American industry had
immediately gone back to "the old ways" after the end of the war. (*sigh*)
It wasn't until the 1980's, when Japanese auto makers began to seriously
threaten traditional U.S. manufacturers with their lower prices yet *higher*
quality, that the U.S once again began to look (almost too late!) at
Deming's principles of Contiuous Quality Improvement. Links:
http://www.deming.org/demingprize/demingprize.html
http://www.dharma-haven.org/five-havens/deming.htm
http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/onlineq.html
http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/psci/
http://www.ecommerce-now.com/images/ecommerce-now/deming.htm
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
David Steuber
> David Steeper wrote:
>
> > Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> >
> >>Who was the QA guy who could not get anyone in Detroit to listen to
> >>him so he went Japan? It would be funny if China found Lisp before the
> >>Round Eyes. Then we're toast. Well, not demon kenny, but it will be bu
> >>hao for youse guys.
> > I think the guy's name was Denning.
> >
>
> xie xie: W. Edward Deming. http://www.isixsigma.com/
Ah. That would explain why my Google search didn't pan out. They
have the letter double-u, why not double-n?
Paul F. Dietz
> I think the guy's name was Denning.
Deming
Paul
Steven E. Harris
> Good thing I do not wear wristguards or I wouldn't have these raw
> hamburger palms.
I broke a bone in my hand a couple of weeks ago from a fall while
skating -- sans wrist guards. It's hard to say whether guards would
have prevented the break. Most people think so, without really
thinking about it.น
I've now lost count of the number of people who say either, "Were you
wearing wrist guards?" or "You should really wear wrist guards." I
thought I was well beyond needing guards, but this cast on my left
hand has now taught me otherwise.
Footnotes:
น It's a common debate on rec.sport.skating.inline:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=inline+skating+wrist+guards+slide+break&scoring=d
--
Steven E. Harris :: seha...@raytheon.com
Raytheon :: http://www.raytheon.com
Kenny Tilton
Steven E. Harris wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <kti...@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>Good thing I do not wear wristguards or I wouldn't have these raw
>>hamburger palms.
>
>
> I broke a bone in my hand a couple of weeks ago from a fall while
> skating -- sans wrist guards. It's hard to say whether guards would
> have prevented the break. Most people think so, without really
> thinking about it.¹
>
> I've now lost count of the number of people who say either, "Were you
> wearing wrist guards?" or "You should really wear wrist guards." I
> thought I was well beyond needing guards, but this cast on my left
> hand has now taught me otherwise.
Bummer. Horsetail, plantain, and slippery elm rock for bone growth. I
usually wear guards for a while once I have injured a hand, because God
likes to have me fall on whatever hurts most. And I wear them and a
helmet while speed skating because the falls I have taken doing that are
just spectacular. Otherwise, skating is somewhat about freedom, and the
body armor detracts from that, so it is a calculated risk I accept.
Good luck with the healing.
kenny
Steven E. Harris
> Otherwise, skating is somewhat about freedom, and the body armor
> detracts from that, so it is a calculated risk I accept.
Exactly, that was the mode I was operating under. In the last few
years of skating, none of my falls and the consequent injuries would
have warranted the "cost" of wearing enough mitigating padding or
guards. I finally crossed that line, and it didn't even /feel/ like I
got hurt. Only after several hours did the pain set in.
> Good luck with the healing.
Thanks. Be careful.
Peter Lewerin
> Luke Skywalker about his Light-Saber: People despise it
> as some curiousity from a forgotten era that is still used
> only by old farts from an esoteric sect, but in fact is
> radically effective and elegant. And then use The Force.
"I find your lack of FLET disturbing"
"Darth CADAR. Only you could be so BOOLE."
"May DEFUN be with you"
"LOOP, I am your INIT-FORM. CONS on me, and together we will rule the
global environment."
Reinhard Gantar
> Hi there. Our company has been using PHP for a while, but I recently
> discovered Lisp after reading some articles about it (mainly to do with
> Yahoo! Store). Is there a newby guide anywhere that someone can point me
> to where I can try a tutorial and hopefully it will show me how to install
> a copy on either a Windows or Linux machine.
The best introduction is "A Gentle Introduction to Lisp" (free online
version):
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/dst/www/LispBook/index.html
If you are an experienced programmer you are always tempted
to skim the first chapters, but it is a good idea to resist the
urge.
"Successful Lisp" (already mentioned and linked to in another post)
is great, too. "Ansi Common Lisp" and "On Lisp" (also online for free)
by Paul Graham have an excellent reputation -- after all, he is THE
contemporary Lisp-guru (slashdotted many times). Ansi Common Lisp
is introductory, On Lisp is fairly advanced stuff and too steep
a curve for a rookie (that's at least how I felt about it).
Ansi Common Lisp: http://www.paulgraham.com/acl.html (not available
online)
On Lisp: http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html (IS available
online)
Kind regards
Gantar
>
> Appreciate any advice
>
> Thanks
>
> Ade
>