Being a Lisper

As I had mentioned earlier I wanted to learn Lisp and had started with the online ELM-ART Lisp Course. It was a very good place to start. Half way through it I also started with the Little Schemer. The book alongwith the online course was very helpful. But both the book and the course deals only with the very basics of Lisp. By the end of the sixth lesson of the online course you will be able to write complex recursive functions but nothing more. To learn about Lisp macros you will have to try out some other books.

The OnLisp book (freely available online) by Paul Graham is a good for someone who wants to learn how to use macros in Lisp - the real power of Lisp. One of the reasons why I like this book is because it primarily deals with what you can do with Lisp that you cannot do with other languages.


I think it might take me a month or two to get a basic understanding of macros. Maybe I could try some Lisp based components with interfaces to other popular languages then :)!

Recently while reading a thread in Joel Spolsky's forums, I found a recommendation that it is better to go through:-

1. ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham


2. On Lisp by Paul Graham


3. Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS by Sonya E. Keene


4. Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig

See more links to lisp educational resources here