ANSI Common LISP
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Book Overview
KEY BENEFIT: Teaching users new and more powerful ways of thinking about programs, this two-in-one text contains a tutorial--full of examples--that explains all the essential concepts of Lisp programming, plus an up-to-date summary of ANSI Common Lisp, listing every operator in the language. Informative and fun, it gives users everything they need to start writing programs in Lisp both efficiently and effectively, and highlights such innovative Lisp features as automatic memory management, manifest typing, closures, and more. KEY TOPICS: Dividing material into two parts, the tutorial half of the book covers subject-by-subject the essential core of Common Lisp, and sums up lessons of preceding chapters in two examples of real applications: a backward-chainer, and an embedded language for object-oriented programming. Consisting of three appendices, the summary half of the book gives source code for a selection of widely used Common Lisp operators, with definitions that offer a comprehensive explanation of the language and provide a rich source of real examples; summarizes some differences between ANSI Common Lisp and Common Lisp as it was originally defined in 1984; and contains a concise description of every function, macro, and special operator in ANSI Common Lisp. The book concludes with a section of notes containing clarifications, references, and additional code. MARKET: For computer programmers.
Customer Reviews
Rated 5 starsConcise, extremely well written, and to the point.
If you come from C/C++/Pascal/Java this book is definitely for you. If you come from Forth, you're already accustomed to a fair part of what Lisp is about, this book will show you the missing bits. If you come from Python/Ruby/Perl, well, welcome! Even though ANSI CL has two chapters (11 and 17) about OO programming, that is, for me, the least interesting part. Coming from Java/C++ I already know most of this stuff (the only...
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Rated 5 starsOrganization could be tweaked
Don't get me wrong, I still think the book deserves 5 stars for doing a grade-A presentation of material --- topics are presented clearly and without fuss, and even examples are logically (but thoroughly) discussed, without the bludgeoning that typically accompanies code examples in introductory language texts. One minor failing is that occasionally (I came across 3-4 instances) the author makes use of constructs in examples...
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Rated 5 starsGraham Understands Lisp
Graham has a penetrating understanding of Lisp, so the text is lucid and easy to follow. Also, like Starr's report on Clinton, some of the best stuff is in the footnotes!The book is small and the topic large, so some coverage of things is a bit thin. So what -- the Hyperspec is free. The book is extremely practical, dealing with how to write programs and use the language. It is *extremely* handy to refer to while programming;...
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Rated 5 starsGreat book on Lisp
I think this book is terrific. It covers a great deal of ANSI Common Lisp, in a very concise way, and includes some well-chosen, realistic, medium-scale examples. The writing is clear, clever, and often amusing. Most of all, it really gets me excited about the language! Graham does a great job of explaining how all of the language features work to change your approach to programming, and debunking a lot of the myths you...
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Rated 5 starsLisp as an efficient, general-purpose language
Style: I'm embarrassed to admit that I laughed out loud at some of the jokes embedded in the code examples. The writing is clear and entertaining (why are Lisp books better in this respect than those of of other languages?).Audience: This should probably not be the first programming book that you read, but it could easily be the second. Graham describes Common Lisp in detail, but assumes no prior knowledge of the language...
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