What's your favorite book about Lisp?

Post by **findinglisp** » Sat Jun 28, 2008 9:33 pm

I was curious what people thought was their favorite book about Lisp. I can't list everything in the poll, so if you have additional ones that I haven't mentioned, add them as a comment.

mmmk · Post by **mmmk** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:19 am

On Lisp is missing from the list

LDream · Post by **LDream** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:21 am

That's awfully hard, you know. I picked one, but there are at least 4 others I would consider essential

Post by **findinglisp** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:44 am

mmmk wrote:On Lisp is missing from the list

Ack! You're right. I typically don't think of it because I don't have and can't get a printed copy of it (still waiting for Paul to get something over to Apress to republish it, I guess...

). Anyway, yep, that's a serious omission. The polling module only lets you have 10 choices, though, so adding it would be tough. I have to admit that it's probably in my top 3, along with PAIP and Lisp in Small Pieces.

Unne · Post by **Unne** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 2:37 pm

If not for Practical Common Lisp I never would've bothered with the language. It's a great book on many levels.

Jacques Chester · Post by **Jacques Chester** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:35 pm

I'm working through ANSI Common Lisp as my holiday project. What it has over PCL is exercises, but the two books have different coverage of what is a pretty ginormous language.

I've found this site useful as a reference when I've finished my own solutions to the exercises.

reuben.cornel · Post by **reuben.cornel** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 12:29 pm

I don't know if SICP could be classified as lisp book. Yes it does talk about lisp, scheme to be more precise. But it is more of a general computer science book as it uses scheme as a means to explain general concepts.

dlweinreb · Post by **dlweinreb** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 6:19 am

You might add "Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computing" by David Touretzky, which is particularly good for beginners. However, "Practical Common Lisp" by Peter Seibel is what we give new hires at ITA Software when they arrive and don't know Common Lisp yet. I voted for that (despite my obvious interest in "Common Lisp: The Language", the first edition of which I am a co-author). If you know how to write software and want to learn Common Lisp, "Practical Common Lisp" is your best bet. See http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/.

Post by **findinglisp** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:57 am

dlweinreb wrote:You might add "Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computing" by David Touretzky, which is particularly good for beginners. However, "Practical Common Lisp" by Peter Seibel is what we give new hires at ITA Software when they arrive and don't know Common Lisp yet. I voted for that (despite my obvious interest in "Common Lisp: The Language", the first edition of which I am a co-author). If you know how to write software and want to learn Common Lisp, "Practical Common Lisp" is your best bet. See http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/.

Yea, I should have added that disclaimer that you aren't allowed to vote for your own books. Employees and their immediate families are excluded and all that.

I'm actually split between ANSI Common Lisp and Practical Common Lisp. Frankly, I thought that ANSI Common Lisp was a bit more gentle introduction than Practical Common Lisp, but maybe that's because I read ANSI Common Lisp first. That said, they're both excellent, IMO.

skc · Post by **skc** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 9:00 am

Jacques Chester wrote:I'm working through ANSI Common Lisp as my holiday project. What it has over PCL is exercises, but the two books have different coverage of what is a pretty ginormous language.

I've found this site useful as a reference when I've finished my own solutions to the exercises.

I voted for ACL over PCL (although i like them both) for its style, exercises, and appendix B and D.

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