2026-04-21 09:54 UTC
Replies (20)
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@hor32@hollow.raccoon.quest 2026-04-21 09:56
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church based
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@gilesgoat@toot.wales 2026-04-21 10:05
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church I will only say that I believe I had some "genetic mental barrier" that FORBIDS me to learn LISP. Any time I tried "around chapter 3 my brain goes into some shutdown/defence mode telling it STOP GETTING INFORMATION" 😂 It's like "every cell of my being is telling me to STOP reading about LISP" 😂 .. I am good at C/C++/ASM anyway ... 😅
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@KatS@chaosfem.tw 2026-04-21 10:13
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church Practical Common Lisp is a great intro on the CL side. Other tips: emacs is not mandatory. Some of us heretics use Vim, and other editors/IDEs can work, too.
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@gabrielesvelto@mas.to 2026-04-21 11:09
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church LISP is bliss, LISP is life, LISP is enlightenment, there is no coming back from learning it, but there are so many dialects to explore going forward
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@gorplop@pleroma.m68k.church 2026-04-21 11:17
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church try emacs :D
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@mousebot@todon.nl 2026-04-21 12:07
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church apart from practical common lisp, i enjoyed https://files.spritely.institute/papers/scheme-primer.html and the little schcmer, https://felleisen.org/matthias/BTLS-index.html...
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@jrychter@mastodon.social 2026-04-21 12:21
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church My suggestion would be: watch some Rich Hickey talks (start with "Simple made easy") and then look at Clojure. It's a modern lisp good for production use, with very well designed constructs for concurrency and a great client-side story (ClojureScript). SICP is enjoyable, but many people get bored with it quickly, and it won't get you to real-world apps anytime soon.
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@notptr@social.cyberia9.org 2026-04-21 13:14
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church vectors are faster than lists. Good luck and have fun.
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@davetenny@hachyderm.io 2026-04-21 13:50
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church Really depends on how you like to learn, and how you want to apply what you have learned. - Not strong on programming? Continue on with SICP and the Scheme of your choice. - Want to use lisp to write games? Consider Common Lisp (start with the SBCL implementation of Common Lisp). - Want to know what the functional programming fuss is about in a lisp context, or have access to the JVM? Use Clojure. Check out the Reddit r/lisp and r/common_lisp, and r/clojure forums if appropriate, lots of good discussion and "getting started" materials there. There's also Libera IRC chats, or the discord lisp server for chatting as well (https://discord.gg/W9GBaZpr).
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@thankfulmachine@oldbytes.space 2026-04-21 16:00
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church You have all that you need. Fare thee well, traveler!
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@thankfulmachine@oldbytes.space 2026-04-21 16:00
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church Land of the Lisp by Barksi is cute and fun
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@vindarel@framapiaf.org 2026-04-21 17:32
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church Ok 😎 Cookbook in full and editors page: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/editor-support.html (and more beginner-friendly editors are on the way) libraries: https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome-cl/ web:(opinionated) https://web-apps-in-lisp.github.io/ pro tips: https://github.com/lisp-tips/lisp-tips/issues/ incf shameless plug: debugging CL efficiently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBBS4FeY7XM
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@binkle@clubcyberia.co 2026-04-21 18:20
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church it's probably very basic for you, but I had a lot of fun with the interesting pedagogy in The Little Schemer series. It feels like a children's book of riddles or maybe a simplified platonic dialogue and you learn a lot if you actually go through all the examples on your computer
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@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot 2026-04-21 22:50
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church I'm currently enjoying The Genius of Lisp by @cdegroot@mstdn.ca; it's more a history book but it's a really good exploration of ideas, and shows you why things are the way they are and how they got to be this way. https://berksoft.ca/gol/#org0ce0959
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@DaleHagglund@hachyderm.io 2026-04-21 22:57
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church You might enjoy _The Little Lisper_ or it's more recent variant _The Little Schemer_. They're short, and aren't going to help you much with practical programming tasks, but the initial chapters do work you through the basics quite quickly, and near the end to work up to Also, it's a *long* time since I've read Paul Graham's _On Lisp_ (since before it's been clear that Graham is a wanna-be tech bro), but it gives a good introduction to lisp macros, which are perhaps the part of the language that most defines lisp and the lisp "style". Neither of these are going to teach you how to get useful stuff down now with a real lisp implementation, though, so if that's your goal, there are almost certainly better sources.
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@vnikolov@ieji.de 2026-04-22 06:11
If you do Common Lisp, keep in mind that Guy Steele's _Common Lisp: the Language_¹ is much more than a specification (while not a textbook). _________ ¹ CLtL; the full text is available on the Internet. @spook@pleroma.m68k.church #CommonLisp #Lisp
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@brettm@swarm.coiloptic.org 2026-04-26 05:19
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church if you are not into vibecoded compilers then unfortunately have to avoid steel bank common lisp and now also armed bear common lisp. schemes are in better shape so far, eg afaik chicken scheme has so far not got any llm generated code committed. 'little bits of lisp' by baggers (youtube playlist) is very good, as is r6rs scheme report training arc
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@SleepyCat@mk.absturztau.be 2026-04-26 06:42
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church There's a good intro to scheme by @spritely@social.coop at https://files.spritely.institute/papers/scheme-primer.html. Racket isn't quite a scheme but is pretty close and has some nice features, including a lot of support for creating domain specific languages with Racket back ends, if that interests you.
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@pabryan@mathstodon.xyz 2026-04-29 21:42
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church #emacs is a good way to incorporate #lisp into your daily life and is also well set up for editing lisps of all varieties. Just starting with and configuring some themes to making it look like you want has you writing lisp. Then, adding some key bindings - more lisp. Every customisation is lisp. Lots of opportunities for learning and practising. And you can read SICP in info format within emacs! And you can read the Spritley Institute Scheme primer in org-mode format in emacs! And you run a Guile REPL from within emacs to execute code! So you can do the exercise write there without leaving emacs. And you browse the Web to look up tips and tricks for hacking on lisps. And you post your progress to the fediverse from within emacs! .... You get the idea. Playing around with all that will have you writing little bits of elisp every day, so you'll be improving your lisp skills constantly!
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@akater@shitposter.world 2026-04-22 08:07
@spook@pleroma.m68k.church SICP is not about a language. It's about the basics of programming (there's a JavaScrpit version, even: the language is not a primary concern there). I recommend that you figure out what is it exactly that you want, first. The word “Lisp” has become meaningless since it is unfortunately used as an umbrella term for very different languages. If you want something old, dynamic, interactive, stable, backwards-compatible, practical, multiparadigm, then you want something with “Lisp” actually present in its name.