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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdaisy!wateng!padpowell
From: padpowell@wateng.UUCP (PAD Powell[Admin])
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp
Subject: Help with Lisp, macros, and books
Message-ID: <356@wateng.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 15:22:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: wateng.356
Posted: Mon Sep 26 15:22:10 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Sep-83 05:59:08 EDT
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 36

Due to circumstances,  I have been forced to learn Lisp in a big hurry.
I put out an appeal for information to our local haques,  and got a couple
of references.  I also have comments that I would like constructive (i.e.-
any suggestions to change the situation) criticism on.

1. "Lisp", by P.Winston and B.Horn.  Primer.  The book's style is a bad cross
   between early McKeeman and late Knuth.  However, most of the major parts of
   Lisp are covered.  There are little exercises with answers which prove to
   be most invaluable.
	A major defect is the lack of a "dictionary" of list functions.  While
   there is an index,  a precise definition (or even vague definition) would be
   useful.
2. Franz Lisp.  Where, by the thumbs of all the Lisp Freaks, is a good, read-
   able,  non-telegraphic, complete introduction to the use of Franz Lisp?
   There is no "Introduction to FLISP" to explain how to use the guilty-of-
   maternal-incest compiler, interpreter, etc.  When I am learning a language,
   I would like to have an example of a "session",  a simple "compile and
   execute Towers of Hanoi" would be quite adequate.
3. To quote a collegue: "Lisp Sucks".  Parenthesis.  Atoms. CAR/CDR.  EVAL.
		EEEEEYYYYYYEEEEEECCCCHHHHH!
   However, it is no more painful than learning APL.  I have heard that most
   Lisp programmers have macro packages which transform Lisp into something
   almost readable.

4. LISP scope rules are truly horrible.  This reeks of something from early
   days of IBM Fortran/Assembler or what ever.  Perhaps there is some benefit
   to the "call by guess" rules, but I sure haven't heard any arguments.

If you have any comments, I would be more than willing to listen.  Documentation
and macro packages gratefully accepted.  Pointers to documents,  etc. are nice,
but we do not have many of the major references (MIT reports),  and most
are not available...  Sigh.

Patrick Powell,  U. Waterloo, VLSI Research Group, Waterloo, Ont.
(519) 885-1211 X3381
...watmath!wateng!padpowell