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I second the recommendation for Practical Common Lisp, even for complete beginners and newcomers to Lisp. It covers the very basics, and the writing style is ac

I second the recommendation for Practical Common Lisp, even for complete beginners and newcomers to Lisp. It covers the very basics, and the writing style is accessible and patient.

nextos 8y ago
Lisp has such an amazing literature. Aside from those 2, which are truly nice, there's The Little Schemer, SICP, On Lisp, Lisp in Small Pieces, PAIP and many others (like CLtL, The Art of the MOP, etc). I personally think Lisp in Small Pieces is really underappreciated.
Jach 8y ago
Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? ;) Maybe there are only ones you're not ready for yet... (I've been unsuccessfully searching for a hardcover of Art of the Metaobject Protocol for a while, I can make myself ready for it once I have it.) In HN tradition where we all recommend every book we've ever read similar to the submitted one (and Land of Lisp is worth reading), an overlooked recently published booklet I found is Common Lisp in the Wild: https://www.darkchestnut.com/book-common-lisp-application-deployment/ https://www.darkchestnut.com/book-common-lisp-application-de... Common Lisp is so flexible in letting you develop the way you want to develop, but if you're a professional programmer looking for a Maven-esque template of "structure your project in this familiar way without sacrificing any of the interactive Lisp dev experience, enumerate version-pinned dependencies, one-step make to build, test, run, deploy the final artifact" like I was that book's suggestions are worth the entry fee and you're left with a stable foundation to deviate from.
- kazinator 8y ago
  > is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? Yes, there exists a certain a really awful book from the 1980's about making your own Lisp in C, which has recently been reprinted in essentially its original form.
  - analognoise 8y ago
    Oh that sounds exciting, what's it called?
    - kazinator 8y ago
      It is called Interpreting Lisp by G. Knott. Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/6qc61v/second_edition_published_interpreting_lisp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/6qc61v/second_edition... Not to be confused with other books from the 1980s about doing Lisp in C, like Lisp: A Portable Implementation by S. Hekmatpour.
  - max_wen 8y ago
    I nearly started working through that, would you mind sharing why you think it is a bad book? thx
    - pcr910303 8y ago
      I’m pretty sure it’s because the lisp that book makes isn’t an exact lisp; There are many features lacking and some fundamental concepts are wrongly implemented; However for developing C skills, it’s pretty good. Wouldn’t recommend learning Lisp with that though.
      - max_wen 8y ago
        oh you're correct it is meant to develop C skills not learn Lisp
        kazinator 8y ago
        The 900-something lines of C code documented by the book Interpreting Lisp, which can now be found on Github, is not something I would recommend for teaching C beginners. From a best practices point of view, it is pretty awful. https://github.com/Apress/interpreting-lisp https://github.com/Apress/interpreting-lisp
- _ph_ 8y ago
  > Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? ;) Maybe there are only ones you're not ready for yet... (I've been unsuccessfully searching for a hardcover of Art of the Metaobject Protocol for a while, I can make myself ready for it once I have it.) The Art of the Metaobject Protocol is truely a delightful book. While it is probably not very useful for practical programming - it isn't meant as a teaching book for beginners, it certainly is enlighting how to bootstrap an object oriented system on a common lisp without any object facilities. So if you can get hold of one, grab it! Personally, I am not a fan of the Keene book. I know, many people here disagree with my view, but I neither like its writing style nor the programming style it presents. I would strongly recommend Practical Common Lisp instead.
  - lispm 8y ago
    > the programming style There is a lot of programming style to be learned from the Art of the Metaobject Protocol.
    - _ph_ 8y ago
      Yes, from Amop :) But not from the Keene book.
      - lispm 8y ago
        I'd think from both.
- lispm 8y ago
  > Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? there are not many really bad ones, but there are some and I'm not going to mention them. ;-)
gekkonier 8y ago
I do recommend Practical Common Lisp not only for Lisp newcomers. The concepts teached apply to programming in a bigger context. Lisp is here only a vehicle (a very good one).
Insanity 8y ago
I'm going through this book now. It has a different style from LoL but I do find it suits me better. It feels at least more structured :)

I second the recommendation for Practical Common Lisp, even for complete beginners and newcomers to Lisp. It covers the very basics, and the writing style is accessible and patient.

nextos 8y ago

Lisp has such an amazing literature. Aside from those 2, which are truly nice, there's The Little Schemer, SICP, On Lisp, Lisp in Small Pieces, PAIP and many others (like CLtL, The Art of the MOP, etc). I personally think Lisp in Small Pieces is really underappreciated.

Jach 8y ago

Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? ;) Maybe there are only ones you're not ready for yet... (I've been unsuccessfully searching for a hardcover of Art of the Metaobject Protocol for a while, I can make myself ready for it once I have it.) In HN tradition where we all recommend every book we've ever read similar to the submitted one (and Land of Lisp is worth reading), an overlooked recently published booklet I found is Common Lisp in the Wild: https://www.darkchestnut.com/book-common-lisp-application-deployment/ https://www.darkchestnut.com/book-common-lisp-application-de... Common Lisp is so flexible in letting you develop the way you want to develop, but if you're a professional programmer looking for a Maven-esque template of "structure your project in this familiar way without sacrificing any of the interactive Lisp dev experience, enumerate version-pinned dependencies, one-step make to build, test, run, deploy the final artifact" like I was that book's suggestions are worth the entry fee and you're left with a stable foundation to deviate from.

kazinator 8y ago
> is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? Yes, there exists a certain a really awful book from the 1980's about making your own Lisp in C, which has recently been reprinted in essentially its original form.
- analognoise 8y ago
  Oh that sounds exciting, what's it called?
  - kazinator 8y ago
    It is called Interpreting Lisp by G. Knott. Reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/6qc61v/second_edition_published_interpreting_lisp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/lisp/comments/6qc61v/second_edition... Not to be confused with other books from the 1980s about doing Lisp in C, like Lisp: A Portable Implementation by S. Hekmatpour.
- max_wen 8y ago
  I nearly started working through that, would you mind sharing why you think it is a bad book? thx
  - pcr910303 8y ago
    I’m pretty sure it’s because the lisp that book makes isn’t an exact lisp; There are many features lacking and some fundamental concepts are wrongly implemented; However for developing C skills, it’s pretty good. Wouldn’t recommend learning Lisp with that though.
    - max_wen 8y ago
      oh you're correct it is meant to develop C skills not learn Lisp
      - kazinator 8y ago
        The 900-something lines of C code documented by the book Interpreting Lisp, which can now be found on Github, is not something I would recommend for teaching C beginners. From a best practices point of view, it is pretty awful. https://github.com/Apress/interpreting-lisp https://github.com/Apress/interpreting-lisp
_ph_ 8y ago
> Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? ;) Maybe there are only ones you're not ready for yet... (I've been unsuccessfully searching for a hardcover of Art of the Metaobject Protocol for a while, I can make myself ready for it once I have it.) The Art of the Metaobject Protocol is truely a delightful book. While it is probably not very useful for practical programming - it isn't meant as a teaching book for beginners, it certainly is enlighting how to bootstrap an object oriented system on a common lisp without any object facilities. So if you can get hold of one, grab it! Personally, I am not a fan of the Keene book. I know, many people here disagree with my view, but I neither like its writing style nor the programming style it presents. I would strongly recommend Practical Common Lisp instead.
- lispm 8y ago
  > the programming style There is a lot of programming style to be learned from the Art of the Metaobject Protocol.
  - _ph_ 8y ago
    Yes, from Amop :) But not from the Keene book.
    - lispm 8y ago
      I'd think from both.
lispm 8y ago
> Is there such a thing as a bad Lisp book? there are not many really bad ones, but there are some and I'm not going to mention them. ;-)

gekkonier 8y ago

I do recommend Practical Common Lisp not only for Lisp newcomers. The concepts teached apply to programming in a bigger context. Lisp is here only a vehicle (a very good one).

Insanity 8y ago

I'm going through this book now. It has a different style from LoL but I do find it suits me better. It feels at least more structured :)