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Resources to learn common lisp?

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  Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-20 22:53 +0100
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Ben Bacarisse <ben@bsb.me.uk> - 2026-02-20 22:00 +0000
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-21 12:25 +0100
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-02-21 10:24 -0500
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-21 21:30 +0000
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-22 01:08 +0100
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-22 04:59 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Madhu <enometh@meer.net> - 2026-02-22 10:59 +0530
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-02-22 21:48 +0000
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 12:43 -0400
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 12:41 -0400
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-08 20:02 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-09 00:23 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:28 +0000
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:32 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:27 -0400
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-11 17:33 +0000
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:16 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:53 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Axel Reichert <mail@axel-reichert.de> - 2026-06-09 12:07 +0200
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-10 00:14 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-11 17:22 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-13 13:59 -0700
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 00:55 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-14 01:43 -0700
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 05:45 +0000
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 00:35 +0000
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-08 12:37 -0400
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 00:33 +0000
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-09 00:22 -0400
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> - 2026-06-09 01:22 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:17 +0000
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-09 06:50 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:40 -0400
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-11 00:26 +0000
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-11 05:27 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-10 12:24 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-11 05:57 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> - 2026-06-11 21:07 -0400
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 13:06 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-13 00:13 +0000
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 07:25 +0000
                        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:25 +0000
                          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:46 +0000
                            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:52 +0000
                              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 05:57 +0000
                                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-15 10:10 +0100
                            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 05:56 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> - 2026-06-13 00:55 -0400
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 07:43 +0000
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-13 13:09 -0700
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 01:02 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 12:42 +0000
            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-09 09:36 -0400
              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-10 00:06 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-10 08:43 -0400
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-11 00:22 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-11 08:57 -0400
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-12 00:16 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-06-15 01:15 +0000
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-15 05:42 +0000
                        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-06-15 11:19 +0000
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-11 06:37 -0400
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-13 13:30 -0700
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 00:58 +0000
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-14 01:46 -0700
                        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-15 06:59 -0400
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-11 17:42 +0000
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-12 00:16 +0000
                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-12 12:34 +0000
                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-13 00:11 +0000
                        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> - 2026-06-13 04:06 -0400
                          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-13 13:37 -0700
                            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-06-13 21:25 +0000
                              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-13 15:26 -0700
                                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 05:37 +0000
                                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-06-15 01:34 +0000
                                    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-15 05:43 +0000
                                      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-06-15 11:23 +0000
                        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tfb <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-13 08:36 +0000
                          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 01:43 +0000
                            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2026-06-14 10:36 -0400
                              Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 23:55 +0000
                                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-14 18:04 -0700
                            Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-14 13:14 -0700
                Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-06-13 13:22 -0700
                  Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-14 01:55 +0000
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tpeplt <tpeplt@gmail.com> - 2026-02-20 17:44 -0500
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-21 12:30 +0100
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-20 23:50 +0000
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) - 2026-02-21 00:24 +0000
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Andreas Eder <a_eder_muc@web.de> - 2026-02-21 11:36 +0100
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> - 2026-02-21 12:44 +0100
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-03-31 17:47 -0400
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-03-31 23:41 +0000
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? tpeplt <tpeplt@gmail.com> - 2026-04-01 13:23 -0400
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Peri Didaskalou <pfd@torfree.net> - 2026-05-01 10:52 -0400
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Peri Didaskalou <pfd@torfree.net> - 2026-05-01 10:57 -0400
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Peri Didaskalou <pfd@torfree.net> - 2026-05-01 11:06 -0400
    Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-01 14:56 -0400
      Re: Resources to learn common lisp? "Robert B. Carleton" <rbc@rbcarleton.net> - 2026-06-01 23:02 +0000
        Re: Resources to learn common lisp? steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> - 2026-06-02 21:32 -0400
          Re: Resources to learn common lisp? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-06-03 03:16 +0000

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#60884

On Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:36:36 -0000 (UTC), tfb wrote:

> Lawrence D´Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> That’s even worse. That means the live objects have to be moved
>> from their existing locations, which might be in the cache, into
>> new locations which most likely are not.
>
> How do you think the copying happens? How does the data you've just
> written to its new location manage not to end up in a cache?

You need to remember what the cache is for. Having a cache in the
copying path doesn’t somehow magically speed up copying.

And remember, *everything* that is live is being pushed into the cache
by the copying -- including objects that the program wasn’t actually
needing at the moment.

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#60893

> And remember, *everything* that is live is being pushed into the cache
> by the copying -- including objects that the program wasn’t actually
> needing at the moment.

Yeah, GCs are very costly.  Which makes it all the more amazing that
reference counting is typically even worse.


=== Stefan

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#60896

On Sun, 14 Jun 2026 10:36:48 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:

> Yeah, GCs are very costly. Which makes it all the more amazing that
> reference counting is typically even worse.

Do you have a reference for that? One which shows that heap-intensive
operations are more efficient (size, speed) when doing with a garbage
collector than reference-counting?

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#60898

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> Do you have a reference for that? One which shows that heap-intensive
> operations are more efficient (size, speed) when doing with a garbage
> collector than reference-counting?

Chapter 5 of "The Garbage Collection Handbook" (Jones, Hosking, & Moss
2012) is about reference counting.  Most of what it says about naive
reference counting (like Python's, or C++'s std::shared_ptr) is bad.
The relevant text is a page or so, more than I want to type.  The rest
of the chapter is about ways to get around the deficiencies.

I also looked up Zorn's PhD thesis (about GC performance) from 1988:

https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1989/Archive/CSD-89-544.pdf

It says similar things to the GC handbook above:

    Unfortunately, reference counting has fundamental disadvantages.
    First and foremost, reference counting algorithms do not reclaim
    storage allocated in circular structures.  Modifications to the
    traditional algorithm have been suggested to overcome this problem,
    but the performance of the modified algorithm is unacceptably slow.
    As a result, reference counting algorithms are augmented with
    traditional garbage collection algorithms.  A second disadvantage of
    reference counting is that space is required to maintain the count.
    A simple implementation associates a 32-bit count with each object
    and increases the size of each cons object (the most common object
    type) by 50%.  More complex implementations reduce this overhead but
    do not entirely eliminate it.  A third disadvantage of reference
    counting is that it fails to reorganize or compact objects in memory
    and is thus unable to improve the locality of references to those
    objects.  By using generations, garbage collection can signicantly
    improve reference locality, as this thesis shows.  Finally, the most
    signicant advantage of reference counting, that of incrementally
    collecting storage, has also been achieved with garbage collection
    algorithms using incremental and generation techniques.

    Because of these disadvantages, reference counting is not often used
    in modern Lisp and Smalltalk implementations.  Recently, however,
    research with distributed memory computers has sparked renewed
    interest in reference counting algorithms because they allow storage
    deallocation based on local information, instead of the global
    information required by garbage collection.  This dissertation
    focuses entirely on techniques for garbage collection and does not
    consider reference counting any further.

Jones' online GC bibliography has a bunch of entries that mention
reference counting.  Only a few look even slightly relevant, but you
could check them if you want.

https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/rej/cgi-bin/searchbib?pattern=reference+counting

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#60894

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> And remember, *everything* that is live is being pushed into the cache
> by the copying -- including objects that the program wasn’t actually
> needing at the moment.

Generational GC exists to avoid that.  In most GC cycles, the stuff that
you copy is new and either is in use or gets collected at the next cycle.
Now and then you have a "major" GC that copies older objects.  Those
cycles are slower but there aren't that many of them.

If you actually profile an application, and GC is dominating the CPU
time, something is probably wrong with the program.  It's even that way
with GHC, which likely generates more garbage than typical Lisp programs
do, because of how the language works.

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#60874

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> Whereas a garbage collector, by design, is spending much of its time
> hitting long-dead objects, which would likely have long since
> disappeared from the cache. 

Larger runtimes tend to use semispace (copying) GC's.  Those never touch
dead objects.  They copy the live objects to a new block of memory
(which also makes them contiguous), then release the entire old block in
a single operation.

> Feel free to show any performance measures that back up your claim --
>particularly memory usage. I would say the only reason the Python
>approach hasn’t been done before now is because it’s hard to do -- pure
>brute-force GC has always simply been the path of least resistance.

For a long time (amybe still), we lived in a world where memory was
cheap and people cared more about program speed than the memory
footprint of the GC'd heap.  The heap after all is the part of the
program memory that potentially contains pointers, and high-memory
systems (databases, file servers, etc.) tended to use the memory mostly
for caches and other chunks of pointer-free data.  I know lots of us
remember old Lisp systems thrashing during GC, but that was before every
cheap PC had gigabytes of ram.  

Java in particular has received many times more performance tuning of
both its GC's and its JIT compilers than Python ever has.  Benchmarks
reflect that.  I ran a Lucene-based production search system for a
while, and keeping it lively was more a matter of keeping the data
caches warm than anything to do with the GC.  IDK whether CL got much
attention in the same period, or is getting it now.

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#60885

On Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:22:57 -0700, Paul Rubin wrote:

> For a long time (amybe still), we lived in a world where memory was
> cheap and people cared more about program speed than the memory
> footprint of the GC'd heap.

Memory still is cheap (even at current prices), compared to what it
was in living memory. The paradox of current processor architectures
is: memory may be cheap, but accessing memory is expensive.

> Java in particular has received many times more performance tuning
> of both its GC's and its JIT compilers than Python ever has.
> Benchmarks reflect that.

I would be wary of simplistic comparisons like that, without looking
in more detail at the code.

The key to getting speed out of Java is to avoid heap operations. This
is one reason why Java code ends up so verbose. You can’t even define
custom operator overloads.

For example, at one point I wrote a library of 4×4 matrix operations
for 3D graphics on Android. Here’s what the method looked like that
created a matrix for scaling about an arbitrary given origin:

    public static Mat4f scaling
      (
        Vec3f v,
        Vec3f origin
      )
      /* returns a matrix that will scale about the specified point by the specified vector. */
      {
        return
            translation(origin).mul(scaling(v)).mul(translation(origin.neg()));
      } /*scaling*/

(The operations go from right to left: move the origin to (0, 0, 0),
apply the scaling, then move back to the original position.)

A Java programmer who cared about performance wouldn’t do it in such a
functional way: they would do it procedurally, defining the methods so
that they applied transformations in sequence to an existing matrix
object, instead of creating a new one every time.

Python, of course, encourages functional ways of expressing things,
and it provides lots of constructs to ease this sort of thing --
including custom operator overloads. But this means creating lots more
objects on the heap than Java would.

So you see, the performance you saw with Java very likely had less to
do with GC optimization than you suppose.

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#60744

Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> writes:

> Hello everyone!
>
> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
> use.
>
> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
> active?
>
> Thanks for everyone in advice

A place where you can start is with David S. Touretzky’s
book "COMMON LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic
Computation", which Carnegie-Mellon University has made
available for download as a PDF file:

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/book.pdf

In addition to the text that teaches you Common Lisp, it
includes exercises, answers to the exercises, and a glossary
to get the definitions of terms.

Although you can read the book, you will want to be able to
evaluate expressions both to practice and the confirm that
you understand what you are doing.  Some readers of this
group might have a Lisp that they will recommend.  I
recommend that you start by installing GNU Emacs on your
computer.  It is a text editor that comes with its own Lisp,
called Emacs Lisp, that is similar enough to Common Lisp
that you will be able to complete many of the exercises
without installing a Lisp.  Over decades, Emacs has been
developed so that it can be used as an environment that is
highly-optimized for Lisp programming, including Scheme and
Common Lisp.

If you have not used Emacs and are able to install it, then
you will want to look carefully the first time that you
start running it.  You should see the following two links:

   Emacs Tutorial
   Emacs Guided Tour

The tutorial gets you started on using Emacs and the guided
tour shows you some of the capabilities that the editor.
The guided tour uses one of Emacs’s built-in web browsers to
download into the editor a web page with text and images to
give the tour.

You should also read the built-in manual titled "Introduction
to Emacs Lisp", which is available inside Emacs via its
menu:

   menu -> Help -> More Manuals -> Introduction to Emacs Lisp

You might consider reading this (much smaller) book BEFORE
reading "Gentle Intro." because it will quickly give you an
idea of whether you want to learn Lisp.

-- 
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Birds.

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#60749

> I recommend that you start by installing GNU Emacs on your computer

I used Emacs a bit - just a few weeks.  I'll install it again.

> A place where you can start is with David S. Touretzky’s book "COMMON
> LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation"

Thanks! I'll read the book. It seems pretty good.

-- 
- mario

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#60745

Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> wrote or quoted:
>I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
>use.

  I read parts of a Common Lisp specification by Guy Steele in
  the 80s or 90s. But this is very long ago, and I have long
  forgotten what I read. I don't really know Common Lisp well.

  Some books come to mind, but I have not read any of them:

Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel (who was a regular here)

Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by
David S. Touretzky

On Lisp by Paul Graham

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#60746

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:
>Some books come to mind, but I have not read any of them:

  Here are quotations from this group from the years starting
  with "202":

|El Fri, 25 Sep 2020 17:08:53 -0700 (PDT), Ishaan escribió:
|>>What tutorial are you following?
|>"Practical Common Lisp" by Peter Siebel. Are their any good alternatives
|>to Emacs and lisp in a box that are easier to use? Thanks for the help!
|That's a pretty good book, and Emacs with Slime is the best setup IMO, so 
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
José Manuel García-Patos on 2020-09-26 12:58:32+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Lisp programming questions


|[_]-- try the 
|     Book-- Land Of Lisp
|          which is very simple to start with
|               and it makes a sequence of games
|               working up to a webserver version of Dice Of Doom
|               in CommonLisp 
|          it's written by a doctor of medicine apparently
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
picoVerse on 2021-03-22 02:58:01+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Lisp programming questions


|There are a number of introductory books that have been produced over the
|years. It doesn't matter if some of them are years old, as Common Lisp hasn't
|changed in a while (although some libraries for doing things have).
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Russ on 2022-01-26 20:28:48+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Is using Emacs a good way to learn lisp?


|Common LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
|by Touretzky, David S.
|ISBN 13 9780486498201
|
|Practical Common Lisp
|by Peter Seibel
|ISBN 13 9781430242901
|
|I haven't read the first. I can recommend the second (for those with some
|programming experience) although it uses LOOP too much for my taste and only
|casually mentions the DEFSTRUCT functionality.
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Spiros Bousbouras on 2022-01-29 19:20:29+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Is using Emacs a good way to learn lisp?


|2 books to read absolutely to understand Lisp and its philosophy:
|Ansi Common Lisp
|On Lisp
|Both from Paul Graham. The second one is not printed anymore, but
|available at low cost from lulu.com
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ST on 2022-11-22 06:54:33+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Can someone help me fix a basic recursive function


|When I ventured out into Common Lisp some years back, I found
<Touretzky>
|a very nice read, with lots of small recursive exercises.
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Axel Reichert on 2022-11-22 21:36:29+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Can someone help me fix a basic recursive function


|> I searched around for subsets (not very fruitful), but I did happen to
|> find one quite interesting online textbook (apart from the usual
|> suspects), "Learn Lisp the hard way":
|It's an in-progress draft.  It's looking pretty good.  I don't even
|think a book to teach one how to use a language needs that much.  But if
|the author has that much energy, I think it's useful.
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Julieta Shem on 2024-01-30 04:37:02+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: common lisp, the untold story


|Peter Seibel's ``Practical Common Lisp'' guides you with the GNU EMACS
|and SLIME.  Chapter 2.  I use the GNU EMACS and SLIME.  It's wonderful.
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Julieta Shem on 2024-02-04 15:31:48+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
Subject: Learning the REPL


|- Common Lisp: An Interactive Approach <-novices
|- A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation <-advanced  
|- Paradigms On Artifical Intelligence Programming <- almost expert
'-----------------------------------------------------------------------
usuario on 2024-10-03 21:05:02+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,

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#60747

On Sa 21 Feb 2026 at 00:24, Stefan Ram wrote:

> ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:
>>Some books come to mind, but I have not read any of them:
>
>   Here are quotations from this group from the years starting
>   with "202":
>
> |El Fri, 25 Sep 2020 17:08:53 -0700 (PDT), Ishaan escribió:
> |>>What tutorial are you following?
> |>"Practical Common Lisp" by Peter Siebel. Are their any good alternatives
> |>to Emacs and lisp in a box that are easier to use? Thanks for the help!
> |That's a pretty good book, and Emacs with Slime is the best setup IMO, so
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> José Manuel García-Patos on 2020-09-26 12:58:32+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Lisp programming questions
>
> |[_]-- try the
> |     Book-- Land Of Lisp
> |          which is very simple to start with
> |               and it makes a sequence of games
> |               working up to a webserver version of Dice Of Doom
> |               in CommonLisp
> |          it's written by a doctor of medicine apparently
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> picoVerse on 2021-03-22 02:58:01+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Lisp programming questions
>
> |There are a number of introductory books that have been produced over the
> |years. It doesn't matter if some of them are years old, as Common Lisp hasn't
> |changed in a while (although some libraries for doing things have).
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Tom Russ on 2022-01-26 20:28:48+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Is using Emacs a good way to learn lisp?
>
> |Common LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
> |by Touretzky, David S.
> |ISBN 13 9780486498201
> |
> |Practical Common Lisp
> |by Peter Seibel
> |ISBN 13 9781430242901
> |
> |I haven't read the first. I can recommend the second (for those with some
> |programming experience) although it uses LOOP too much for my taste and only
> |casually mentions the DEFSTRUCT functionality.
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Spiros Bousbouras on 2022-01-29 19:20:29+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Is using Emacs a good way to learn lisp?
>
> |2 books to read absolutely to understand Lisp and its philosophy:
> |Ansi Common Lisp
> |On Lisp
> |Both from Paul Graham. The second one is not printed anymore, but
> |available at low cost from lulu.com
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ST on 2022-11-22 06:54:33+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Can someone help me fix a basic recursive function
>
> |When I ventured out into Common Lisp some years back, I found
> <Touretzky>
> |a very nice read, with lots of small recursive exercises.
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Axel Reichert on 2022-11-22 21:36:29+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Can someone help me fix a basic recursive function
>
> |> I searched around for subsets (not very fruitful), but I did happen to
> |> find one quite interesting online textbook (apart from the usual
> |> suspects), "Learn Lisp the hard way":
> |It's an in-progress draft.  It's looking pretty good.  I don't even
> |think a book to teach one how to use a language needs that much.  But if
> |the author has that much energy, I think it's useful.
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Julieta Shem on 2024-01-30 04:37:02+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: common lisp, the untold story
>
> |Peter Seibel's ``Practical Common Lisp'' guides you with the GNU EMACS
> |and SLIME.  Chapter 2.  I use the GNU EMACS and SLIME.  It's wonderful.
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Julieta Shem on 2024-02-04 15:31:48+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,
> Subject: Learning the REPL
>
> |- Common Lisp: An Interactive Approach <-novices
> |- A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation <-advanced
> |- Paradigms On Artifical Intelligence Programming <- almost expert
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> usuario on 2024-10-03 21:05:02+00:00 in comp.lang.lisp,

All these books are good.
Let me add two additional ones:

'LISP, Lore, and Logic' by W. Richard Stark

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

-- 
ceterum censeo redmondinem esse delendam

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#60750

> |El Fri, 25 Sep 2020 17:08:53 -0700 (PDT), Ishaan escribió:
> |[...]
> |That's a pretty good book, and Emacs with Slime is the best setup IMO, so 
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll try Slime! It looks like a pretty complete environment.

> |Peter Seibel's ``Practical Common Lisp'' guides you with the GNU EMACS
> |and SLIME.  Chapter 2.  I use the GNU EMACS and SLIME.  It's wonderful.
> '-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll look into ``Practical Common Lisp'', I guess many people recommend
it :P.

-- 
- mario

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#60773

Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> writes:

> Hello everyone!
>
> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
> use.
>
> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
> active?
>
> Thanks for everyone in advice

https://lisp-lang.org/books/

most people like graham. I personally like Norvig.

the introduction in emacs on emacs-lisp is actually very good! C-h i m
elisp (in emacs).

there is a printed manual somewhere. emacs is probably the best wy to
learn.

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#60774

On Tue, 31 Mar 2026 17:47:55 -0400, steve g wrote:

> the introduction in emacs on emacs-lisp is actually very good! C-h i
> m elisp (in emacs).

CTRL-H I is roughly equivalent to the “info” command; it shows you
every info file on your system.

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#60775

steve g <sgonedes1977@gmail.com> writes:

> Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> writes:
>
>> Hello everyone!
>>
>> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
>> use.
>>
>> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
>> active?
>>
>> Thanks for everyone in advice
>
> https://lisp-lang.org/books/
>

Oddly, this list does not include "COMMON LISP: A Gentle
Introduction to Symbolic Computation", by David
S. Touretzky, which the computer science department at
Carnegie Mellon University provides as a .pdf file:

  https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/book.pdf

And it does not include "COMMON LISP: An Interactive
Approach", by Stuart C. Shapiro, which the State University
of New York at Buffalo provides as a .pdf file:

  https://cse.buffalo.edu/~shapiro/Commonlisp/commonLisp.pdf

> most people like graham. I personally like Norvig.
>
> the introduction in emacs on emacs-lisp is actually very good! C-h i m
> elisp (in emacs).
>

1. C-h i m only works if you have not used C-h i for other
info documentation.  It assumes that the info reader starts
in the directory.  More generally, type C-h i followed by
‘d’ (to go to the directory) and then ‘m’ to specify a menu
entry.

2. C-h i d m elisp would open the Emacs Lisp reference
manual, which is not the Introduction to Emacs Lisp.  For
that, use C-h i d m, and then type Emacs Lisp Intro at the
"menu item:" prompt.

-- 
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parliament of Birds.

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#60781

On 2026-02-20 16:53, Mario Rosell wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
> use.
> 
> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
> active?
> 
> Thanks for everyone in advice
> 

Another great book is Mark Watson's _Loving Common Lisp, or the Savvy's 
Programmer's Secret Weapon_ (last updated April 22nd 2026!)
               https://leanpub.com/lovinglisp

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#60782

On 2026-02-20 16:53, Mario Rosell wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
> use.
> 
> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
> active?
> 
> Thanks for everyone in advice
> 
Another very good author is Mark Watson, with his excellent, and very 
current book: Loving Common Lisp, or a Savvy's Programmer's Secret 
Weapon' :  https://leanpub.com/lovinglisp .

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#60783

On 2026-02-20 16:53, Mario Rosell wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
> use.
> 
> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
> active?
> 
> Thanks for everyone in advice
> 
Another very good author is Mark Watson, with his excellent, and very 
current book: Loving Common Lisp, or a Savvy's Programmer's Secret 
Weapon' :  https://leanpub.com/lovinglisp

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#60794

Mario Rosell <mario@mariorosell.es> writes:

> Hello everyone!
>
> I want to learn Common Lisp, but I don't really know what resources to
> use.
>
> What did you all use to learn? Is that even relevant? Is this newsgroup
> active?
>
> Thanks for everyone in advice


best book that helped me was


Paradigms of AI Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp
Book by Peter Norvig

.

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