Anatomy of LISP
by Allen, John · first published 1978
68% recommend32% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Deep look at how Lisp works internally, covering language semantics and implementation. Praised as an introduction to formal semantics and a precursor to SICP, suited to experienced Lispers and implementers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…is always the case in such discussions, I'll mention these three fine books for Scheme implementers: * Lisp in small pieces, by Christian Queinnec * Compiling with continuations, by Andrew Appel * Anatomy of Lisp, by John Allen
on “How Chicken Scheme compiles to C” ↗In addition to SICP, John Allen's "The Anatomy of Lisp" is also a great book to learn computing concepts through Lisp.
on “How Lisp Became God's Own Programming Language” ↗A good book for experienced Lispers (because it's out of date, it's not for beginners) is Allen's Anatomy of Lisp. Good luck finding a copy, though. http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Lisp-McGraw-Hill-computer-scie... And then there are the original Lambda papers: http://library.readscheme.org/page1.html
on “A Common Lisp Bookshelf” ↗…into CLOS in depth, there's The Art of the Metaobject Protocol by Kiczales, des Rivieres, and Bobrow (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Metaobject-Protocol-MIT-Press/d...). There's also a good older text, Anatomy of Lisp by John Allen (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anatomy-LISP-McGraw-Hill-computer-s...).
on “Between two Lisps” ↗Lisp in Small Pieces - Christian Queinnec https://christian.queinnec.org/WWW/LiSP.html Anatomy of LISP - John Allen https://archive.org/details/anatomyoflisp0000alle/
on “Ask HN: Guide for Implementing Common Lisp” ↗A good text to make you aware of the power of Lisp is "The Anatomy of Lisp" by John Allen (MIT). It's an old text but they don't write books like that anymore.
on “Why Fennel?” ↗The bibliography contains a typo, namely entry 5 misses an "l" in Allegro. And a book, which I'd call "an Oldie but Goldie" could be added: John Allen's "Anatomy of Lisp" (1978) which still is an excellent read for those who want to dive deep into Lisp's interna. One might also call it a precursor of SICP, as it covers a number of introductory topics too. Abstract: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/542865
on “Show HN: I wrote a technical history book on Lisp” ↗…is that my public library had them, but they are nice to read, if you have the mathematical background (it definitely helps to read this in parallel with a study in number theory, combinatorics, etc) Anatomy of Lisp. The art of the meta-object protocol. Out of the inner circle. The Soul of a new Machine. Unix Internals, the new frontiers. Effective C++. SICP. More recently, I found the C# specification a page…
on “Which programming book you just couldn’t stop reading from start to end?” ↗…wish to explore that side of computing and it seems to be very hard to find reading and physical resources to get set up. I have read the elements of computing, PAIP part 1 and currently reading the Anatomy of Lisp. I also plan to read Lisp in Small Pieces. Having said that, these books do not seem to exactly have what I am looking for, as excellent reads as they are! Some links are welcome!
on “Ask HN: Resources for Systems Programming in Lisp” ↗I have fond memories of Allen's book Anatomy of Lisp. I guess there are only historical reasons to read it now, but at the time it felt like an introduction to wizardry.
on “Byte Magazine: LISP (1979)” ↗…list), it's highly praised by physicists exactly for its computational approach to classical mechanics and its use of Scheme as notation. You certainly get the notation feeling reading SICP. Allen's Anatomy of Lisp is the best introduction to language formal semantics I've seen. Too bad it's out of print, but it is a bit dated by now. Now if you're actually talking about the craft of programming, the two best books…
on “The myth of the Lisp genius” ↗…a lot out of it, whether you are interested in writing compilers and interpreters (for Lisp or any language) or whether you just want to see how Lisp works. It is the modern day successor to Allen's "Anatomy of Lisp"." Peter Norvig
on “Lisp in Small Pieces: Table of Contents and Code” ↗…core is the same: a specific List Processor. McCarthy himself did not want to write programs as s-expressions. He defined M-Expressions, where S-Expressions were only used for the data. Check the book "Anatomy of LISP", which is a classic. All the code in the book is written in M-Expressions. Now, Racket gets a new syntax (-> Rhombus). But the language core mechanisms are still there. I'm a fan of the s-expression…
on “The Evolution of Lisp (1993) [pdf]” ↗…Software Engineering?", discussed in the OP, sounds like an interesting historical piece about how long it took for mathematics to be integrated into engineering work. The author is John Allen, who wrote Anatomy of Lisp. Can anyone find that paper online? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962733 points to a blog post about it from 2009, but none of the links seem to work.
on “Is Software Engineering Possible?” ↗Fair enough. I heard that John Anatomy of Lisp might have more details. Do you know books talking about the topics you mentionned ?
on “A Simple Scheme Compiler (1997)” ↗