LISP Lab

The Blog Has Moved

Tim — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:03:26 +0000

I’ve merged my past posts with my main blog, Active Attack. All future updates will be posted there!

A Little Humor and an Update

Tim — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:38:18 +0000

First, two XKCD comics about LISP which I found funny (click on image for full size):

XKCD is always good for a read.

In terms of my progression with LISP, things are going well. The CMU book has proven to be a much better resource then some of the previous material I have been using and I am covering ground quickly so far. I have also ordered ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham, which should serve me well later.

On a slightly unrelated note, I have applied to be the editor of Computers > Programming >Languages > Lisp >FAQs, Help, and Tutorials catagory at the Open Directory Project. I am currently the editor of Computers > Programming > Languages > C > FAQs, Help, and Tutorials and Computers > Programming > FAQs, Help, and Tutorials, so hopefully my request is approved. I think the current set of links could do with come cleaning and a large update.

Quick Tools Update

Tim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:52:53 +0000

After a quick stop in #lisp on irc.freenode.net, I am no longer using the Lisp Primer. A few users in #lisp recommended I try something else. Apparently there was some misuse of vocabulary and notation. To replace it, I am now using Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by David S. Touretzky.

LISP Logos

Tim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:13:50 +0000

I have been crawling the web looking for LISP logos and I found some pretty interesting stuff. By far, my biggest success was finding Conrad Barski’s collection, which he made himself. A sampling can be found bellow.

The one other site I found had logos that I also liked, on Bill Clementson’s Blog.

Enjoy!

Tools, Goals, and Thoughts

Tim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:46:30 +0000

My modest goal is to learn LISP. This desire was originally inspired by an interesting quote I read about LISP:

SQL, Lisp, and Haskell are the only programming languages that I’ve seen where one spends more time thinking than typing.
– Philip Greenspun

As a programmer and as someone who has an appreciation for interesting mathematics, and also as someone who does not look favorably upon unnecessary work, I take special enjoyment in elegant solutions to problems. Moreover, as a student of English (my second area of study), I recognize that one should certainly spend more time thinking than reading (or writing, as the case may be). I know that complex tasks which penetrate deeper than face value require an attention of thought much greater then the physical work involved. For this reason, LISP seems like a particularly attractive language for me.

I write this a few days after I started working on my goal, and it has been an interesting time so far. The tools I use are simple, but powerful. I compile and run my LISP programs using SLIME ( Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs) in Emacs, running onto of Ubuntu(Hardy Heron). I do not own a LISP book, instead all of the resources I consult are online. Two I have found particularly useful are Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel and Lisp Primer by Colin Allen and Maneesh Dhagat.

My short term goal for now is to implement a few common sorting algorithms, specifically Insertion Sort, Selection Sort, Quick Sort, and Merge Sort. I might write up the algorithms in C++ and/or Java as well, in order to benchmark my LISP programs against them. It might be interesting to compare, although I do not know if any differences would be apparent.

Thats all for now! More to come soon as I progress.

Hello World!

Tim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:57:16 +0000

(format t "Hello, world. I am a LISP program.")