What's the best way to learn LISP? [closed]

Answer 1

I'm working my way through Lisp right now and have come across "the book" to learn Lisp. It was suggested by Rainer Joswig

The book is called Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation and can be downloaded as a PDF. The author begins with a UML like approach to Lisp in the first chapter and gradually introduces more and more Lisp syntax.

I've also looked at practical lisp and I think that the author glosses over a lot of required information, even for a seasoned programmer. This book doesn't seem to do that (I'm not completely finished, but have found it useful enough to suggest).

one more thing, you'll need an environment to work in. I've found Lisp in a Box to work well. It runs on Windows and Linux and uses eMacs.

Answer 2

There are several options here. First of all, Scheme and Common Lisp are fairly different in rather deep ways (like scoping); you should pick one to start with and stick with it for a while. I'm a Common Lisp fan, but that may be one of those vi-vs-EMACS religious questions.

For Scheme, go for Kent Dybvig's Scheme Programming Language, followed by SICP.

For Common Lisp, as well as Practical Common Lisp, I'd recommend David Lamkins's Successful Lisp. Successful Lisp is also available online for free.

After than, look at Lisp in Small Pieces by Queinnec, and Norvig's Lisp in AI book.

Marty Hall has a nice list at Johns Hopkins.

Updated: I don't mean stick to it forever, just that trying to learn both at once would be confusing.

Answer 3

I've got attracted to LISP by its JVM dialect - Clojure. Clojure is sort of great LISP, since

• it has "simplified syntax", that is less parathensis are required, there is cleverly design set of collections available
• it is JVM based, so there is stable, performant runtime underneath, in addition whole Java ecosystem (libraries, e.g. database drivers, build tools, IDEs) is within our reach
• Noir is a good web framework, apps can be deployed on Java web and applications servers

In other words, Clojure can be used in production right here, right now.

When it comes to resources, there are at least 4 books and planty online resources:

• Books: "The joy of Clojure" - very insightful but can be difficult, so it's best read together with "Programming Clojure".
• Online tutorials: Mark Volkmann tutorial is great
• see also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/599519/which-tutorial-on-clojure-is-best
• 4Clojure website contains a number of simple programming tasks, so one can play with Clojure and see other people solutions

Answer 4

I enjoyed reading Practical Common LISP and ANSI Common LISP.

On LISP looks interesting, but at $190 seems a little expensive for a book.

Answer 5

Read these books in order: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham and then move onto Practical Common Lisp. Or skip ACL and use it as a reference while working your way through PCL.

Answer 6

There is now a book out called 'Land of LISP' that teaches LISP programming through writing 80's style text games. I'm reading it now, and it's very well written and doesn't take itself too seriously, which I like.