What's the best way to learn LISP?

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Solution 1

Try reading Practical Common Lisp, by Peter Seibel.

Solution 2

My personal favorite is Abelson & Sussman Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. It uses Scheme, which is a nice and clean dialect of Lisp.

If you like a more practical approach maybe you should pick some Lisp framework for web design (I have no idea if such a beast exists) and jump right in.

Solution 3

You might want to start with The Little Schemer as a warm-up. It's not a practical book about writing production Lisp programs, but it's a great book for learning how to think in Lisp.

Solution 4

MIT has made available an entire LISP course in DIVX and MPEG format. I highly recommend it.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/

Solution 5

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.

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Im just a hacker trying to be a better hacker

Updated on April 25, 2020

Comments

  • Joseph
    Joseph almost 4 years

    I have been programming in Python, PHP, Java and C for a couple or years now, and I just finished reading Hackers and Painters, so I would love to give LISP a try!

    I understand its totally diferent from what i know and that it won't be easy. Also I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) there's way less community and development around LISP. So my question is: what's the best way to learn LISP?

    I wouldn't mind buying books or investing some time. I just don't want it to be wasted.

    The "final" idea would be to use LISP for web development, and I know that's not so common so... I know it's good to plan my learning before picking the first book or tutorial and spending lots of time on something that may not be the best way!

    Thank you all for your answers!

    edit: I read Practical Common Lisp and was: ... long, hard, interesting and definitely got me rolling in Lisp, after that i read the little schemer, and it was short, fun and very very good for my overall programming. So my recommendation would be to read first the little schemer, then (its a couple of hours and its worth it) if you decide lisp(or scheme or whatever dialect) is not what you where looking for, you will still have a very fun new way of thinking about recursion!

    • Kaz
      Kaz almost 10 years
      Common Lisp: An Interactive Approach. Old (1992) book by Stuart Shapiro. Used to be dead tree only, but in recent years available in electronic form.
    • Kaz
      Kaz almost 10 years
      Common LISPCraft by Robert Wilensky is an interesting, if old, book. I have a hard copy, dated 1986.
  • user49117
    user49117 about 15 years
    "On Lisp" is available freely from the author's website.
  • Joseph
    Joseph about 15 years
    That seems like a good and fast reading to start! TY
  • Joseph
    Joseph about 15 years
    I think I saw that book at my campus... so ill go pick it up right now!
  • Joseph
    Joseph about 15 years
    Im allready a good participant of the Project Euler so yes, the time i spend there will be practicing LISP(once i learn how to do a couple of stuff)
  • Robert K
    Robert K about 15 years
    Don't forget about the REPL! I haven't used what I learned about LISP, but it made me a much better programmer in all other languages.
  • Joseph
    Joseph about 15 years
    You know, its very sad to see all the webservers and frameworks around lisp that are web oriented... have ZERO design(css or even inline style
  • Aaron
    Aaron about 15 years
    DFectuoso - it's not just a link about the book, it is the book. Start reading the book online
  • JasonFruit
    JasonFruit about 15 years
    The problem here is that someone didn't tell you about the tutorial; press Control-H, release them, and press T. That will take you to a tutorial that will give you all you need to get started. Sorry to hear about your bad experience.
  • graywh
    graywh about 15 years
    The lectures are based off their textbook, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
  • Aaron
    Aaron about 15 years
    I would tend to disagree. Yes, diving into it may be the fastest way to learn Lisp, but it's also the most likely to turn people away. PCL has the advantage that experienced programs can start using Lisp from day 1, instead of just being mesmorized
  • Joseph
    Joseph about 15 years
    Yea i know but i dont like reading in the monitor... anyway i picked this to be the answer coz i started reading the book and it is good(im over half of it and then ill read the little schemer, will edit this when i finish both =0 )
  • Drew Noakes
    Drew Noakes almost 15 years
    I found the DivX videos to be of similar quality to the MPEG videos, even though they're a lot smaller. Save yourself the bandwidth and disk space.
  • Johan Kotlinski
    Johan Kotlinski over 14 years
    I second this, it's a great book, well-written and IMO more inspiring than Practical Common Lisp.
  • Michael H.
    Michael H. over 14 years
    +1 for referencing the old regex joke, but -1 for not being useful on top of it. :-P
  • Andrew-Dufresne
    Andrew-Dufresne over 13 years
    Here is the link to download On Lisp for free. Link
  • okonomichiyaki
    okonomichiyaki over 13 years
    I believe Arc is its own dialect of Lisp, not just a framework. paulgraham.com/arc.html
  • Bill Evans at Mariposa
    Bill Evans at Mariposa almost 13 years
    For even more disk space savings, go to link and search for "structure and interpretation" (using the quotation marks).
  • priestc
    priestc over 11 years
    I going through the videos SICP. Which dialect are they using? They don't make any mention of dialect, they just call it 'LISP'...
  • dptd
    dptd almost 8 years
    @priestc I know this question was asked 4 years ago but just to make it clear. They are using "Scheme".
  • Zelphir Kaltstahl
    Zelphir Kaltstahl over 7 years
    Note though, that SBCL is for Common LISP and the book is about Scheme. I didn't read it completely yet, but I think it can still be of great help for learning Common LISP. You just need to find the equivalents in Common LISP.
  • Abhirath Mahipal
    Abhirath Mahipal over 7 years
    Note:- The videos relate to the first edition of the book. The book has a second edition and there are considerable differences between the two.