A gentle introduction to Lisp

[nkh]

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/index.html

[jacquesm]

Thank you nkh.

We should start a nice collection of free programming books like this, there are quite a few of them.

[mahmud → jacquesm]

http://www.reddit.com/r/csbooks

[bradfordw → mahmud]

Heh, as if I didn't have enough to read already on top of work and school. This is great, thanks for posting!

[fogus]

My first Lisp book. Oh the memories.

[felideon → fogus]

Likewise, although I kind of read it alongside PCL. A chapter or two in Gentle Intro, and then the similar/counterpart chapter in PCL.

http://gigamonkeys.com/book/

[whyenot → fogus]

For me as well. It was also my first real introduction to recursion. Thanks for the dragon stories.

[kqr2]

Paul Graham's On Lisp:

http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html

[mnemonik → kqr2]

... but I would hardly put On Lisp in the same "gentle" category as Touretzky's book. A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation could easily be someone's first ever programming book. Show me the person whose introduction to programming was On Lisp and I will show you either someone who got fed up real quick, or someone who is a whole lot smarter than me and the coders I know.

I would probably recommend this order:

1. Gentle Intro

2. Practical Common Lisp

3. On Lisp

[mofey → kqr2]

You probably haven't read that one. On Lisp is an advanced book describing the use of macros.

[kylec → kqr2]

I really wish he would do another printing. I've read the PDF but I'd love a physical copy without paying the outrageous prices they're listed for on used book sites (Amazon, eBay, etc).

[sown]

As an aside, is there a gentle introduction to prolog?

[xel02 → sown]

There is are a couple http://www.learnprolognow.org/ http://www.amzi.com/AdventureInProlog/advfrtop.htm

A good way is to look at maybe the lecture notes of an undergrad functional programming course. They usually present it quite simply.

Unfortunately the course at UBC does not post the lectures online openly but rather through a restricted CMS.

[stralep → sown]

When you mention Prolog, is there microProlog implementation for Linux out there?

[jister]

I like the "gentle" word in the title. Makes it less intimidating, well at least for me.

[access_denied]

The elisp tutorial that comes with emacs is a well written starting-point for the total beginner.

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/html_node...

[nickyp → access_denied]

There's also Common Lisp: First Contact: http://homepage.mac.com/svc/CommonLispFirstContact/index.htm...

A very nice 15-page PDF hands-on introduction, in a nice layout optimized for screen-reading on our fancy widescreen displays ;-)