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ON LISP
This book is intended for anyone who wants to become a better Lisp programmer.
It assumes some familiarity with Lisp, but not necessarily extensive programming
experience. The first few chapters contain a fair amount of review. I hope that
these sections will be interesting to more experienced Lisp programmers as well,
because they present familiar subjects in a new light.
It’s difficult to convey the essence of a programming language in one sentence,
but John Foderaro has come
Lisp is a programmable programming language.
There is more to Lisp than this, but the ability to bend Lisp to one’s will is a
large part of what distinguishes a Lisp expert from a novice. As well as writing
their programs down toward the language, experienced Lisp programmers build
the language up toward their programs. This book teaches how to program in the
bottom-up style for which Lisp is inherently well-suited.
It assumes some familiarity with Lisp, but not necessarily extensive programming
experience. The first few chapters contain a fair amount of review. I hope that
these sections will be interesting to more experienced Lisp programmers as well,
because they present familiar subjects in a new light.
It’s difficult to convey the essence of a programming language in one sentence,
but John Foderaro has come
Lisp is a programmable programming language.
There is more to Lisp than this, but the ability to bend Lisp to one’s will is a
large part of what distinguishes a Lisp expert from a novice. As well as writing
their programs down toward the language, experienced Lisp programmers build
the language up toward their programs. This book teaches how to program in the
bottom-up style for which Lisp is inherently well-suited.
413 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 1993
45 people are currently reading
1230 people want to read
About the author
Paul Graham
8 books603 followersPaul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer. In 1995 he developed with Robert Morris the first web-based application, Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. In 2002 he described a simple statistical spam filter that inspired a new generation of filters. He's currently working on a new programming language called Arc, a new book on startups, and is one of the partners in Y Combinator.
Paul is the author of On Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1993), ANSI Common Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1995), and Hackers & Painters (O'Reilly, 2004). He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.
Paulgraham.com got 10.6 million page views in 2008.
Paul is the author of On Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1993), ANSI Common Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1995), and Hackers & Painters (O'Reilly, 2004). He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, and studied painting at RISD and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.
Paulgraham.com got 10.6 million page views in 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 22, 2014
A fantastic look in-depth at LISP that follows on from his intro book ANSI Common LISP. Read that intro book first - it's a great tutorial that also contains a reference section. This book really got me going in LISP several years ago. At times it's a slog but if you have your LISP REPL running and key in ALL the examples as you read you'll find you get to grips with LISP with just this book. Don't give up. I found that when I got stuck I could just put the book down for a while and come back to it after my brain had a chance to rewire itself. I first read this book when it came out in 1996 and then several times after that and yet after another reading in 2014 I still find I'm getting new insights.
December 31, 2011
One of the most important books to read if you want to truly master the lisp family of languages.
Want to read
November 27, 2016Not only a great source of LISP wisdom, but also pleasant to read. The style is engaging, it never feels boring or dry. PG uses analogies from all kinds of unrelated areas (architecture, psychology) to draw parallels with pieces of good LISP code.
"It used to be thought that you could judge someone’s character by looking at the shape of his head. Whether or not this is true of people, it is generally true of Lisp programs."
"It used to be thought that you could judge someone’s character by looking at the shape of his head. Whether or not this is true of people, it is generally true of Lisp programs."
June 14, 2013
A must read for programmers in any language, but especially in Lisp.
December 20, 2015
One of the greats, below SICP but not too far.
October 22, 2021
I devoured this book.
February 7, 2016
Learn functional programming patterns in Common Lisp from the master Paul Graham.
June 18, 2012
A programming book, not really 'casual reading', but a good one.
November 19, 2013
Fantastic book on LISP with lots of insight into macros and other advanced features of the language. A must-read.
April 17, 2015
pretty good introduction in the philosophy of lisp programming. One of the books I guess would be worth re-reading later dow the road
April 18, 2017
Becomes progressively brain-twisting, but worth sticking with for the principles even if they're not immediately and instantly usable in your next program.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews