Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!kramer
From: kramer@utcsrgv.UUCP (Bryan M. Kramer)
Newsgroups: net.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Lisp books, Franz Lisp, Help
Message-ID: <2338@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 10:19:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2338
Posted: Tue Sep 27 10:19:15 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Sep-83 10:35:23 EDT
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 33

In-reply-to: <350@wateng.UUCP>

Good books are:
1) "Functional Programming in LISP" by Hector Levesque (its not really
published but it is available in the U of Toronto textbook store.
This is probably the best ...

2) Charniak E., Riesbeck C., McDermott D. "Artificial Intelligence
Programming" Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, N.J. 1980.
Once you have read 1), this book really shows you how to take advantage
of LISP.

Comments:

1) re. CAR, CDR: I think that names don't really matter, you have to
learn the concepts involved.  Are words like "do" or "int" or symbols
like "{}" any more meaningful?

2) re. parentheses: if a LISP function is properly paragraphed, their
presence does not affect the readability of code.  Both emacs and
vi provide facilities which make balancing parentheses trivial.

3) reference 2) above describes some useful macros which enhance
readability.

4) re. scope rules: LISP is simply call by value.  If you are careful
with the use of non-local variables, dynamic scoping does not interfere.
Non-local variables are a pain in any language.

5) LISP is as much an environment as a language.  Debugging, especially,
is much easier in LISP than in any other environment + language available
to me.  When I have to program in other languages I find that I spend much
of my time duplicating things LISP offers as primitive.