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My first 'major' project was writing a Lisp interpreter from scratch. Looking back on it, my implementation was horrible, the design atrocious, and the extensib
by johngunderman 17y ago
My first 'major' project was writing a Lisp interpreter from scratch. Looking back on it, my implementation was horrible, the design atrocious, and the extensibility null. However, I remember how AWESOME it was at the time to be able to run my code on my own interpreter. What mattered most about that project wasn't the program itself: it was what I learned in the process. I guess my point is, no matter how shitty your code is, you learned something from writing it. So don't wait for a 'firm foundation' to start hacking away, just dive in and feel free to screw up. Just don't screw up in the same way the next time you do it.
- sharkbrainguy 17y agoI've got to agree with this. Writing Lexers/Parsers/Interpreters is some of the most fun I've had programming. When your program can run other programs, that's a huge thrill. Read EoPL, it's awesome (and free) and LiSP is awesome but expensive. In fact almost every Lisp related textbook seems to have several lisp interpreters in it. edit: As noted below EoPL is apparently not free, and it seems that I've inadvertently pirated it from somewhere. http://www.cs.indiana.edu/eopl/ http://www.cs.indiana.edu/eopl/ http://tinyurl.com/lispinsmallpieces http://tinyurl.com/lispinsmallpieces I'm working on a toy (for now) lisp in javascript at the moment and it's profoundly unimpressive but has been hugely fun and educational for me.
- plinkplonk 17y ago"Read EoPL, it's awesome (and free)" EoPL is not free afaik. I agree that it is an awesome book.