Showing posts with label lisp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lisp. Show all posts

Programming Clojure (Pragmatic Programmers) Review

Programming Clojure (Pragmatic Programmers)
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Programming Clojure (Pragmatic Programmers) ReviewIt is hard to be objective when reviewing this book. I have struggled to separate my enthusiasm for "Clojure The Language" from my honest opinion of "Clojure The Book".
Clojure is a remarkable language.
Clojure The Language deserves five stars every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Clojure "The Book", on the other hand, is simply passable. The book is "okay".
Clojure is remarkable partly because Lisp is remarkable, and partly because Clojure has taken the difficult concept of concurrency and turned it into an exhilarating, attractive, efficient, sensible tool. I highly recommend that all curious programmers try the Clojure language.
Unfortunately, I cannot give this book a high recommendation. This is not a bad book. But it is definitely not a 5-star book.
The 5-star score would place this book in the same category as such beloved books as the Flanagan/Matsumoto Ruby book, or Meyers' Effective C++, or even Rossum's original (now deprecated) An Introduction to Python. Scoring the Stuart Halloway book as "on par" with those other books just simply does not ring true.
The Stuart Halloway book is a fast and easy read. However, it is more like a series of really nice blog entries than a solid introductory programming language book. I enjoyed Stuart's writing style, and I even enjoyed all of the sample code.
However, at the end of the day, "there is no there there".
I needed to refer to other books in order to become PRODUCTIVE with Clojure. When I purchased the Halloway book, no other Clojure books had been written yet, so I relied upon books that were written about coding techniques in other flavors of Lisp.
Reading the Halloway book was like watching a really fun and captivating movie trailer. It made me stop and say "Wow! That was cool! ... um... okay. Now can I watch the entire movie?"
If you are already fluent in another Lisp dialect, then you probably do not need this book.
In fact, if you already know some variant of Lisp, then you need to learn about the JVM and various Java platform ideas far more than you need to study Clojure itself. Clojure itself will come naturally to a "lisper". Yet you may be mystified about where to put your jar files and about what the various Java exceptions are telling you. And if you want to debug your Clojure programs, you will likely be using a Java debugger.
If you know Lisp, you can combine that previous knowledge with the Clojure API documentation, and the excellent Mark Volkmann website, and that will probably be enough. An "industrial strength" book on Java (including various compilation and deployment techniques) will help you much more than a book on Clojure.
If you have never programmed in any sort of Lisp at all, then I can almost guarantee that this book on Clojure will not be enough to get you fully "up and running" with Clojure. Most certainly you will learn how to write small scripts and games like the ones demonstrated in the book, but you will probably start to feel the weakness of this book as soon as you want to build something larger.Programming Clojure (Pragmatic Programmers) Overview
Clojure is a dynamic language for the Java Virtual Machine, with a compelling combination of features: Clojure is elegant. Clojure's clean, careful design lets you write programs that get right to the essence of a problem, without a lot of clutter and ceremony. Clojure is Lisp reloaded. Clojure has the power inherent in Lisp, but is not constrained by the history of Lisp. Clojure is a functional language. Data structures are immutable, and functions tend to be side-effect free. This makes it easier to write correct programs, and to compose large programs from smaller ones. Clojure is concurrent. Rather than error-prone locking, Clojure provides software transactional memory. Clojure embraces Java. Calling from Clojure to Java is direct, and goes through no translation layer. Clojure is fast. Wherever you need it, you can get the exact same performance that you could get from hand-written Java code. Many other languages offer some of these features, but the combination of them all makes Clojure sparkle. Programming Clojure shows you why these features are so important, and how you can use Clojure to build powerful programs quickly.


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Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation Review

Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
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Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation ReviewMy copy is worn out, and I sure could use a NEW one...! When I buy a book, I seldom know whether it will become a staple of my library or not. This has, over the years, become part of the most central core. I have worked in LISP off and on for years, and this book unfailingly gets me back on in a hurry. Not only is it the clearest tutorial on LISP I know (it's even a literate, pleasant read!), it has the only discussion of recursion I know that's clear and fun.Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation OverviewA highly accessible introduction to LISP, this is for inexperienced programmers and programmers new to LISP. A LISP "toolkit" in each chapter explains how to use Common LISP programming and debugging tools such as DESCRIBE, INSPECT, TRACE and STEP.

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Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS Review

Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS
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Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS ReviewLisp is kinda hot again, Perl 6 will have multiple dispatch, Ruby's getting before and after methods, and Aspect Oriented Programming is still bubbling under in Java, so what better time to revisit the Common Lisp Object System and this slim volume from 1989? Unsurprisingly, objects in Lisp are implemented differently to the well-known object systems, even Smalltalk, so if you're into OO (and in particular AOP), check out CLOS.
And this book is an excellent way to get acquainted with the features of CLOS. While the introduction suggests non-Lispniks can benefit from reading this book, I would strongly suggest you can read Lisp to make sure you understand what's going on. It's a quick read (about 220 pages, excluding the appendices), the language is unfussy and clear, and the concepts are simply explained.
The hoary old shape example is used briefly (perhaps it wasn't as tired in 1989), but the two main examples used in the book is a simple locking mechanism for concurrency, and multiple inheritance based disk and tape stream classes. Both example do the job well of highlighting the unique flavour of CLOS. The metaobject protocol is touched upon only briefly, but there's more than enough of the standard object protocol described for you to be getting your money's worth.
Other introductory books do cover CLOS (Practical Common Lisp has a good chapter), but this is a very nice standalone volume devoted to CLOS only. Well worth reading, object (and Lisp) fans.Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS Overview

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Practical Common Lisp Review

Practical Common Lisp
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Practical Common Lisp ReviewI've been recommending this text to people who want to start learning Common Lisp since it was first available in draft form on the author's web site. Now that it's out in print I can enthusiastically recommend that anybody who is interested in learning Common Lisp - or even curious about how the language can improve your productivity - purchase it.
Peter has a very enjoyable and easy-to-understand writing style, and he starts early with practical examples that show how Common Lisp can be used to solved problems. Chapter 3, "A Simple Database", is a great explanation of how programs are grown from pieces in Common Lisp to solve large problems. It's presented early and draws people in to the problem solving techniques used when programming in Lisp.
Peter doesn't skimp on details, though: detailed chapters on FORMAT (for formatted output), LOOP (for general iteration / value collection), and CLOS (the Common Lisp Object System) provide a wonderful tutorial to these powerful but complex features.
The book ends with a long string of practical examples that synthesize multiple concepts into programs that are useful and show exactly why programming in Lisp is so cool. The last practical example, which builds a HTML generation library in Lisp, gives the reader a taste of why writing a Domain-Specific Language is so easy in Lisp and why it can integrate so well with the rest of the language.
Peter is very enthusiastic about Common Lisp and it shows in his writing. Unlike other authors (Paul Graham comes to mind) he gives every major feature of the language its due and shows how and where it should be used.
Practical Common Lisp may be one of the most fun books on programming you'll read all year. Even if you're just curious, check it out. It may change the way you program.Practical Common Lisp Overview...it has a fresh view on the language and the examples in the later chapters are usable in your day-to-day work as a programmer. — Frank Buss, Lisp Programmer and Slashdot ContributorIf you're interested in Lisp as it relates to Python or Perl, and want to learn through doing rather than watching, Practical Common Lisp is an excellent entry point. — Chris McAvoy, Chicago Python Users Group Lisp is often thought of as an academic language, but it need not be. This is the first book that introduces Lisp as a language for the real world.
Practical Common Lisp presents a thorough introduction to Common Lisp, providing you with an overall understanding of the language features and how they work. Over a third of the book is devoted to practical examples such as the core of a spam filter and a web application for browsing MP3s and streaming them via the Shoutcast protocol to any standard MP3 client software (e.g., iTunes, XMMS, or WinAmp). In other "practical" chapters, author Peter Seibel demonstrates how to build a simple but flexible in-memory database, how to parse binary files, and how to build a unit test framework in 26 lines of code.


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Common LISP. The Language. Second Edition Review

Common LISP. The Language. Second Edition
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Common LISP. The Language. Second Edition Review"Common Lisp, The Language" (or CLTL) is an industrial-strength language reference for a somewhat esoteric computer language (in the view of most programmers today), so this tome is definitely not for the novice, nor for the faint of heart. However, if you are a true devotee of Common Lisp, then it is hard to imagine how you can escape this most sacred of texts. I own two dog-eared and heavily marked-up copies of the book, from which I have gotten my money's worth many times over. For years one or the other of these copies has been a permanent fixture on my desk, beside my keyboard. It is an invaluable reference for serious Common Lisp programmers.
However, as a previous reviewer pointed out, CLTL is strictly a reference, not a text. If you attempt to use it as an introductory text, you will hate both the book and the language, which will be your loss. To learn the language, I would recommend either "Lisp", by Winston and Horn, or "ANSI Common Lisp", by Paul Graham. After perhaps several years of serious Lisp programming, you will most likely find yourself studying the pages of CLTL, at which point you will appreciate what Guy Steele has succeeded in accomplishing in this slender volume of 1029 pages. Common Lisp is an enormous language, with over 800 built-in functions, many of which have complicated semantics and dozens of keywords that alter those semantics. Considering the daunting task of documenting this language, Steele deserves a medal. (In fact, the book has received various awards.)
Common Lisp was an integral part of several classes that I taught at Caltech for many years; I had students write compilers, interpreters, theorem provers, symbolic manipulators, numerical solvers, graph algorithms, etc. When you attack such a wide range of problems with a single language, you appreciate how rich Common Lisp is, and how well suited it is to all these tasks (yes, even numerical computation). But to get the most out of the language, it's necessary to tap into its more esoteric functions, which is where Steele's book is very handy.
I can think of few topics in the field of computer science that have as rich a history as the language Lisp. It's difficult to present a meaningful view of the language, especially in it's "Common" incarnation, without delving into some of that history. Steele does this exceedingly well in CLTL, although I can understand how it can be off-putting to some; it adds bulk to an already formidable tome, and at times seems to clutter up what ought to be a cut-and-dried presentation of syntax and semantics. However, unless you subscribe to the mystical view that Lisp was created by divine fiat (a theory that is gaining popularity), then you will inevitably have questions as to why things were done in one way and not another. The answers provide insight into language design (or at least the workings of the X3J13 committee), and at times a better mastery of Common Lisp. For those who do not care for such details, Steele sets the digressions off from the main body of the text, making them easy to skip. But I, for one, am happy that this information is recorded somewhere. (If nothing else, it keeps the creationists at bay.)
Like the mathematician Gilbert Strang, who manages to inject humor into the driest of mathematical journals, Steele has found ample opportunities to sneak bits of wordplay and irreverence into CLTL for comic relief. Not only does Steele enliven his program fragments with snippets of pop culture, as in
"(loop for turtle in teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles do..."
but all such references are assiduously listed in the index, which makes it a real hoot to glance through. Listed there are "Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus", and "Michelangelo (artist)" as well as "Michelangelo (turtle)". We also find things like "goody two-shoes", "oranges, comparing apples with", "square peg in round hole", and numerous foods, including garbanzo beans, ice cream, orange flavor beef, pizza, and peppermint. Under "pasta" we find "see also macaroni". But my favorite index entry is "kludges", which directs us to pages 1 through 971; which is, of course, the entire body of the book, excluding index and appendices. Steele obviously decided to have a little fun, which is understandable considering how dry such books tend to be.
But, before you click this book into your shopping cart, you should realize that the complete text is available on-line, and for free. I'm not sure how Steele swung this with the publisher, but it's out there in the public domain. Finally, I should point out that there are a number of excellent free Common Lisp interpreters available for many different platforms. The best I have found is CLISP, which is maintained primarily by Bruno Haible through the GNU Project. It's reasonably complete and robust.
Happy hacking. May cons be with you.Common LISP. The Language. Second Edition OverviewThe defacto standard - a must-have for all LISP programmers.In this greatly expanded edition of the defacto standard, you'll learn about the nearly 200 changes already made since original publication - and find out about gray areas likely to be revised later. Written by the Vice- Chairman of X3J13 (the ANSIcommittee responsible for the standardization of Common Lisp) and co-developer of the language itself, the new edition contains the entire text of the first edition plus six completely new chapters. They cover: - CLOS, the Common Lisp Object System, with new features to support function overloading and object-oriented programming, plus complete technical specifications * Loops, a powerful control structure for multiple variables * Conditions, a generalization of the error signaling mechanism * Series and generators * Plus other subjects not part of the ANSI standards but of interest to professional programmers. Throughout, you'll find fresh examples, additional clarifications, warnings, and tips - all presented with the author's customary vigor and wit.

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