Newbie in Lisp

[MrGoat]

Hi all,


I am a newbie in Lisp and computing in general - have only taken an
Intro to C++ class 2 years ago. Am currently interested in learning
Lisp after reading Paul Graham's essays on it. This is the current
situation I am in : I have download 3 things : CYGwin , Subversion and
GNU CLisp 2.49 and briefly read through some of the introductory
passages though have to say I cant really understand much of the
technical terms. Any ideas on what would be some of the logical next
steps for me to take ? How do I start writing some simple programs to
get a feel of how this thing works?


Thanks alot !

MrGoat

[Norbert_Paul]

MrGoat wrote:
> ...

> GNU CLisp 2.49 and briefly read through some of the introductory
> passages though have to say I cant really understand much of the
> technical terms. Any ideas on what would be some of the logical next
> steps for me to take ? How do I start writing some simple programs to
> get a feel of how this thing works?

Maybe you should read
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/

[fortunatus]

I agree you should read the book already reference (PCL - Practical
Common Lisp - at Gigamonkeys.com).

Since you've alread started with Cygwin, you can call down XWindows,
Emacs and Clisp straight from Cygwin. Hooking Emacs and CLisp
together can make an interactive console/editor, which elevated my
learning experience from interesting to joyful.

It also works very well to get the MS-Win native versions of Emacs and
CLisp and hook 'em together, avoiding need for Cygwin and XWindows.

Emacs has "inferior lisp mode", which is a great basic way to hook
Emacs & CLisp together. Emacs has a bit of learning curve, but it
offers a tutorial link on it's startup screen that worked well for me.

[MrGoat]

Sure, I'll go through that. Basically what I am trying to so is create
a mission briefing page.

Do you guys remember those old warcraft 2 missions? Before every
mission started , there would be a short mission briefing with some
text scrolling down from top to bottom + a short voice over and a
start button at the bottom right. Trying to create a single page like
that - I have written the text for the first mission of a short game I
am writing but have no idea how to even start programming something
like that. Any hints/tips/suggestions on where to start will be
appreciated.

Thanks alot ...

[John Thingstad]

Well you might enjoy 'Land of Lisp' by Conrad Barski. He has a
entertaining view of lisp and the book does not have lage perquisites on
your skill in programming. Practical Common Lisp, though a great book,
does assume you are already a decent programmer in some other language.

[ccc31807]

On Dec 7, 7:28 am, MrGoat <caig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> steps for me to take ? How do I start writing some simple programs to
> get a feel of how this thing works?
>

There are three introductory books that are inexpensive or free:
Touretzky's 'Gentle Introduction'
Wilensky's 'Common Lispcraft'
Winston and Horn 'Lisp 3rd'

Yeah, these are old and outdated, but contain lots of great exercises
and will certainly get you to start writing programs. Touretzky's book
is probably the lowest common denominator, but it's free (PDF format)
and has the answers to the exercises in the back.

Thare are also three newish books that are quite a bit more
substantial:
Barsky 'Land of Lisp'
Seibel 'Practical Common Lisp'
Norvig "Paradigms'

These are NOT easy and call for a lot of non-Lisp and non-programming
background. Don't be fooled by others' posts -- these aren't for
beginners and will NOT get you where you want to go unless you are
inclined to sweat bullets.

Finally, because of the nature of Lisp and the nature of the kinds of
problems it's best at, I would strongly encourage you to use the most
primitive programming environment you can find at least to start with.
If you use CLISP, use a Lisp aware editor (like Notepad++ or vi if you
know vi) and the command prompt to run your programs. I don't feel
that Lispbox (qv) is good for absolute beginners because of the
overhead of learning it, and you do not want to go near emacs and
SLIME for a good while.

Good luck, CC.

[Raffael Cavallaro]

On 2011-12-08 23:59:42 +0000, ccc31807 said:

> Thare are also three newish books that are quite a bit more
> substantial:
> Barsky 'Land of Lisp'
> Seibel 'Practical Common Lisp'
> Norvig "Paradigms'
>
> These are NOT easy and call for a lot of non-Lisp and non-programming
> background. Don't be fooled by others' posts -- these aren't for
> beginners and will NOT get you where you want to go unless you are
> inclined to sweat bullets.

???

_Land_ of Lisp will make readers sweat bullets?

I'd go so far as to say that if a reader can't follow Land of Lisp
easily then that reader will never learn to program effectively in lisp.

warmest regards,

Ralph

--
Raffael Cavallaro

[Kaz Kylheku]

On 2011-12-08, ccc31807 <cart...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 7, 7:28 am, MrGoat <caig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> steps for me to take ? How do I start writing some simple programs to
>> get a feel of how this thing works?
>>
>
> There are three introductory books that are inexpensive or free:
> Touretzky's 'Gentle Introduction'
> Wilensky's 'Common Lispcraft'
> Winston and Horn 'Lisp 3rd'

Ditto: _Common Lisp, an Interactive Approach_, Stuart C. Shapiro, 1992.

[Tamas Papp]

On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:59:42 -0800, ccc31807 wrote:

> On Dec 7, 7:28 am, MrGoat <caig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> steps for me to take ? How do I start writing some simple programs to
>> get a feel of how this thing works?
>>
>>
> There are three introductory books that are inexpensive or free:
> Touretzky's 'Gentle Introduction'
> Wilensky's 'Common Lispcraft'
> Winston and Horn 'Lisp 3rd'
>
> Yeah, these are old and outdated, but contain lots of great exercises
> and will certainly get you to start writing programs. Touretzky's book
> is probably the lowest common denominator, but it's free (PDF format)
> and has the answers to the exercises in the back.
>
> Thare are also three newish books that are quite a bit more substantial:
> Barsky 'Land of Lisp'
> Seibel 'Practical Common Lisp'
> Norvig "Paradigms'
>
> These are NOT easy and call for a lot of non-Lisp and non-programming
> background. Don't be fooled by others' posts -- these aren't for
> beginners and will NOT get you where you want to go unless you are
> inclined to sweat bullets.

I would not put PAIP in the same category as PCL, and especially Land
of Lisp. PAIP is an excellent book, but more than 50% of it is about
particular algorithms, so perhaps the overhead is quite high if one
has to learn both these and Lisp at the same time.

OTOH PCL is a nice, gradual intro into CL -- a little prior exposure
to programming is probably useful when reading it, but lacking that, I
would just recommend to go through the book more slowly. It is probably
still the best "first book" for CL out there.

> Finally, because of the nature of Lisp and the nature of the kinds of
> problems it's best at, I would strongly encourage you to use the most
> primitive programming environment you can find at least to start with.
> If you use CLISP, use a Lisp aware editor (like Notepad++ or vi if you
> know vi) and the command prompt to run your programs. I don't feel that
> Lispbox (qv) is good for absolute beginners because of the overhead of
> learning it, and you do not want to go near emacs and SLIME for a good
> while.

I don't know if I agree with you here. Sure, learning too many new
things at the same time can be overwhelming, but it takes very little
to learn Emacs+SLIME to the point where the convenience already
surpasses that of a primitive programming environment, and then the
user can build up from here gradually. For example, starting a lisp
process (M-x slime) already gives you the same functionality as a
command-line REPL.

Just my 2 cents,

Tamas

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

Tamas Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:59:42 -0800, ccc31807 wrote:
>
>> Thare are also three newish books that are quite a bit more substantial:
>> Barsky 'Land of Lisp'
>> Seibel 'Practical Common Lisp'
>> Norvig "Paradigms'

"Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming."
or "PAIP".

>> These are NOT easy and call for a lot of non-Lisp and non-programming
>> background. Don't be fooled by others' posts -- these aren't for
>> beginners and will NOT get you where you want to go unless you are
>> inclined to sweat bullets.
>
> I would not put PAIP in the same category as PCL, and especially Land
> of Lisp. PAIP is an excellent book, but more than 50% of it is about
> particular algorithms, so perhaps the overhead is quite high if one
> has to learn both these and Lisp at the same time.

But it has a first section in which it presents a subset of CL, which is
often asked for newbies.

So let's put that first section of PAIP into the same category.


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

[Tamas Papp]

Chapter 1 is a very condensed demonstration of some features (with a
bit of outdated style, eg setf without defining the variable first),
and a dicussion of how Lisp differs from other languages. Chapter 2
walks you through a short program. Chapter 3 is more of a reference.

Perhaps this gives as taste of CL and some perspective, but the rest
comes later, and then the reader has to make an investment in learning
about particular algorithms at the same time in order to learn more
about CL (note that I am not saying that this is a bad investment,
just stating the fact that it has to be made). Because of this, I am
not sure that reading part of PAIP is as useful as reading the same
number of pages from PCL, because then the reader has the option of
proceeding with the whole book with the sole purpose of learning CL.

That said, I like PAIP and learned a lot from it, and the first
chapters already have a high insight/LOC ratio, so I understand why
you are recommending it. It is just that PCL is so excellent, and
also easy to obtain, that it would be my first recommendation to
anyone. But these things are always a matter of taste and reasonable
people can still disagree about them.

Best,

Tamas

[Captain Obvious]

TP> That said, I like PAIP and learned a lot from it, and the first
TP> chapters already have a high insight/LOC ratio, so I understand why
TP> you are recommending it. It is just that PCL is so excellent, and
TP> also easy to obtain, that it would be my first recommendation to
TP> anyone. But these things are always a matter of taste and reasonable
TP> people can still disagree about them.

PCL is an excellent book for people who already know how to program and what
to learn some CL or just check what's so cool about it.

PAIP starts much smoother, so I guess it's better for not-so-experienced
programmers. OTOH it doesn't spend too much time on boring stuff like list
mumbo-jumbo.

So to each his own, there is no one-size-fits-all book.