Book query: Miller/Benson,Lisp style and Design
Heinola Kari Pekka
Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".
I saw that title in Digital press 1991 catalog.
--
Kari Heinola
Internet: hei...@ee.tut.fi
TTKK/Mittaustekn. PL 527 SF-33101 Tampere Finland
Tel: 358-(9)31-162455
Marty Hall
>
>Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".
>I saw that title in Digital press 1991 catalog.
Be aware of what *type* of book it is. It is not a LISP tutorial, teaching
beginners how to program in LISP like Winston and Horn (_LISP_, 3rd ed),
Tatar (_A Programmer's Guide to CL_), Touretzky (_CL: A Gentle Into. to
Symbolic Computation_), Wilensky (_Common LISPcraft_), or Kessler (_LISP,
Objects, and Symbolic Computation_). Neither is it an advanced AI applications
text. For that I would recommed Norvig (_Paradigms of AI Programming_, out in
Oct) or others use Hasemer and Domingue (_CL Programming for AI_) or
Charniak, et al (_AI Programming_).
Instead, it is a short (150 pages plus 50 pages of appendices, index, etc)
book for people familiar with Common LISP that gives suggestions on most
appropriate constructs, programming style, commenting, debugging, a few
efficiency issues, and general organization. There is a running example,
called the Personal Planner, that provides illustrations throughout the
text. Note that several CLtL/2 constructs, most notably the loop macro and
CLOS are included in these discussions. I personally found several of the
suggestions useful, but found many to be non-helpful, at least for the
types of applications I do and the background that I have. My guess is that
I would have appreciated it more a couple of years ago. The authors are
from Lucid, and as such have experience both in teaching LISP and using it
in real applications.
- Marty Hall
------------------------------------------------------
ha...@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu, hall%apl...@jhunix.bitnet, ..uunet!aplcen!hall
Artificial Intelligence Lab, AAI Corp, PO Box 126, Hunt Valley, MD 21030
(setf (need-p 'disclaimer) NIL)
Barry Margolin
I generally agree with Marty Hall's description and assessment. However, I
would like to say that I thought the book was very good for what it tries
to do. I agreed with many of their stylistic suggestions, and I don't
recall finding any of them outrightly "wrong". I would be quite surprised
if any single programmer agreed with all the stylistic viewpoints of any
other, especially in a language as rich as Common Lisp. But you could do
much worse than follow the guidelines in that book. It's certainly a good
basis from which to develop your own personal style.
--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.
bar...@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Eric Benson
>>>Has anyone comments about "Miller/Benson: Lisp style and Design".
> medium-sized Lisp programs. Doesn't (so far as I can recall) tell
> you what to do when you're doing such things writing systems that
> involve several packages.
Expensive, yes, but well worth the price! Seriously, I don't think
it's any more expensive than comparable books, at least here in the
states. Perhaps there is more of a premium in Europe.
Jeff Dalton
Fairly expensive. Good style and design advice for writing up to
Mikel Evins
>
>Expensive, yes, but well worth the price! Seriously, I don't think
>it's any more expensive than comparable books, at least here in the
>states. Perhaps there is more of a premium in Europe.
Looking at it with the eye of the general
book-buying public, I would have expected to
pay maybe $12.95 for it. In fact I paid more
like $30.
However, I am close enough to the technical
publishing field that I'm aware that several
factors contribute to its being more expensive
than I would expect a normal trade paperback
to be.
It is a technical book, and thus serves a
smaller readership than a general interest book.
In fact, as a Lisp style book, its readership is
even smaller than the run-of-the-mill
computer book. The publisher probably
doesn't expect to sell a lot of copies, and
so prices the book higher than it otherwise
would.
For comparison, take a look at the prices on
Springer's books. Even their slimmest volumes
usually carry a hefty price tag, again because
they tend to publish books that cover
fairly specialized areas.