Let Over Lambda is a fantastic read. Don't make the mistake of writing it off as I did due to the author's triumphant tone. Indeed, the rhetoric is so over the top it is often indistinguishable from parody. He is the Ayn Rand of Common Lisp. But if you can get over that, you will find a range of unusual macrological acrobatics on display that even veteran Lispers will appreciate.
Most Lisp books seem to begin like the opening sequence of Quincy, ME - similar to forensic medicine, Lisp is not for everyone. But the rewards may include a sailboat, white wine, and pleasant company.
Oh, the rhetoric is arrogant and self-congratulatory even by the standards of Lisp books. It's either amusing or aggravating, depending on your point of view.
The Architecture of Symbolic Computers was not known to me and looks very interesting. Unfortunately, it's long out of print and the price for used copies on AbeBooks is high. If anyone has a copy in the Seattle area they'd like to donate for the general good of hackerdom, I have a paper guillotine and an industrial sheet-feed scanner at work. I've used them before to digitize parts of my personal library. If not, I might at some point buy a used copy.
I see there are used copies listed at Amazon. Sellers with thousands of ratings generally have bots that set the book prices. For obscure, out-of-print books, the volume of buyers is really low. I've heard cough that if you want to acquire one of these books less expensively, that the best plan of action is to also try and sell a copy (which of course you don't have). Certain automated bots will then try to under-bid you in order to keep the coveted lowest price slot. You keep reducing the price until it meets you budget. Remove your listing, and then buy from the lowest priced source. The downside is if perchance someone were to try and purchase your non-existant copy. You'd have to cancel that order. But since there is no transaction, the buyer can't give you negative feedback. Of course Amazon doesn't like you canceling orders, so they'll cancel you account if you have a cancellation rate greater than 5%. Its fun watching the different algorithms compete and thinking about what you'd do in those situations (or so I've heard). Of course this strategy probably works better if the book isn't the subject of massive coverage just before you want to buy.
Come on, it's not like you're trying to track down the original Italian edition of some rare art book or something.
The book is maybe $65 because of a random price spike, it was $30 not that long ago, it'll be under $40 again soon. I bet most of you have paid two digits more than that for Apple hardware recently. It's not rare and collectible, it's just a really solid book on virtual machine design that has regrettably gone out of print.
If you're going to engage in such shady shenanigans, at least save it for something actually rare/pricey.
It's a brilliant book, a professor at my university used it for teaching SECD machine implementation. I'm glad that I could get it from the library. If you're interested in these kind of things, Henderson's "Functional Programming -- Application and Implementation" might also your thing. (IIRC the list did not contain it.)
The original lambda papers might be on your want-to-read list, too: http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html; I liked the AIM-453 TR, "The Art of the Interpreter, or, The Modularity Complex" by G. Steele and G. Sussman.
Thanks, I know about Henderson's book and all the lambda papers--I've read or at least skimmed pretty much everything there is to read on Lisp, which is why I was surprised not to have come across The Architecture of Symbolic Computers.
According to camelcamelcamel.com, its price spiked recently. It was more like $30-35 for a while (including when I bought my copy).
It is really good, describing several different architectures for computation. Different designs for virtual machines, if you will. It isn't limited to Lisp, either -- Prolog and a couple other language families are covered.
does that mean the results will be shared? not sure if this is legal, but i would be interested in the final pdf (or whatever)... andrew@acooke.org - thanks. (i am getting upvotes, so others too...)
I'm about to build myself a small lisp related library, starting with the Art of the MOP and LiSP, so I'd love to know more about the books in this list.
Paul Graham's ANSI Common Lisp - I purchased a used copy from Amazon. What I like is that it is a text book and has true exercises and not just code to type in. The downside is that complex ideas are often described briefly.
Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp has been a useful supplement because it goes into some topics in greater depth (i.e. it offers a more gentle introduction). I've been using the online version [which was the subject of an HN thread recently]:
What is particularly nice is that it formats very legibly on my phone, making it great for reading any where (except the bathtub). The lack of exercise problems is a bit of a drawback for the way I learn.
I had read some of Practical Common Lisp, found it good (I'm new to Lisp still, though have dabbled in it over the years a bit) and plan to read the rest sometime later. Do you happen to have a link to that HN thread that discusses the book, or remember (part of) the title of the thread? Would like to read it.
apropos absolutely nothing, except that i finished reading it last night, the book (and manual for) ggplot2 is both a good introduction to that software (ggplot2 generates plots in r) and would serve as an excellent start for someone who wanted to implement the same in other languages. the whole thing is based on a domain model for plotting, which makes a huge amount of sense. after reading it, i am convinced every language will eventually have a similar package/dsl for plotting. i don't think even incanter (r in clojure, sort-of) has a version yet, so as far as i know there is no ggplot2 in any lisp. it would be a great project for someone...
I completely agree with you on ggplot, its amazing. I was also thinking of implementing it in clojure, but don't really have the time right now, due to work and PhD. The book by Wilkinson might be better though, as that's where Hadley got it from.
Indeed. My one strike against it is that I'd rather have a hardcover or an e-book. A paperback that large will eventually fall apart if I keep carrying it around (and it's heavy).
That's a great book for new programmers, but if you already know you like Lisp and have the experience to be able to dive into PCL or PAIP or whatever, LoL is unnecessary. The books in the OP are valuable for any programmer.
Wow, someone else who's read the Sokolowski book. I agree that it's very, very good, though it's been so long that I'm not sure how much it has to offer people today. (I don't own a copy.)
On Lisp is available for free download.
http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html
So is McCarthy's Lisp Programmer's Manual
http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%...
Much of Let Over Lambda is available here:
http://letoverlambda.com/textmode.cl/guest/toc