Build Your Own Lisp
by Mr Daniel Holden · first published 2014
59% recommend33% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Free online walkthrough that teaches C while you build a small Lisp interpreter. Easy to follow and hack on, so it suits beginners and anyone curious how interpreters work, with a real project to finish.
Common criticism: Critics say it stays a toy and misses what makes Lisp interesting, with questionable C
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…by John R. Pierce "Coding the Matrix: Linear Algebra through Applications to Computer Science" by Philip N. Klein "Land of Lisp: Learn to Program in Lisp, One Game at a Time!" by Conrad Barski M.D. "Build Your Own Lisp" by Mr Daniel Holden "LISP IS MY FAVORITE LANGUAGE IN LIFE FOUR MONTHS TO LEARN: Funny beginner's noteook to Learn LISP Programming Step-by-Step(PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE)" ----
on “Ask HN: I'm thinking of writing a book – Why would you want a book?” ↗…steepest learning curve while writing anything useful in C is with a) pointers and b) memory management which this guide doesn't seem to cover. From my experience, the best way for learning C has been [0] Build Your Own Lisp and Zed Shaw's [1] Learn C The Hard Way. That and of course spending countless hours debugging segfaults and memory leaks. [0] - http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/ [1] - https://learncodethehardway.org/c/
on “C for Python programmers (2011)” ↗…in-progress book "Crafting Interpreters" which walks you through implementing an interpreter (well, two actually) from scratch, a chapter at a time: http://www.craftinginterpreters.com/ I really liked "Build Your Own Lisp" too. Fun book. :)
on “Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building one project?” ↗- Practical Common Lisp - Land of Lisp - http://landoflisp.com/ - watch the video, it's hilarious - Build Your Own Lisp - http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/ - Learn C by creating a lisp in C - In the spirit of making your own lisp, I would recommend https://github.com/kanaka/mal - learn any language, by making a lisp in…
on “Ask HN: What are some books where the reader learns by building projects?” ↗"Build Your Own Lisp: Learn C and build your own programming language in 1000 lines of code!" http://www.buildyourownlisp.com/ not app, but fun
on “Ask HN: C for Application Development” ↗> Bad C and terrible rationales. It would be nice if they actually bothered to explain. I'm inclined to trust Build Your Own Lisp over blah blah dot info if the latter is going to engage in nonspecific mudslinging.
on “Learn C and build your own Lisp (2014)” ↗There's a book for just that. The title is "Build Your Own Lisp" and it is free to read [0]. You learn C and build your own Lisp dialect. [0]: https://buildyourownlisp.com/
on “Ask HN: What does a developer need to know to build their own Lisp from scratch?” ↗Looks like just what I have been trying to find, since I am incapable of writing my own. I did start with 'Learn C * Build Your Own Lisp' book [1], and I will finish it for educational purposes; it is a great, short book to work through, and should help with grokking Carp. The closest I have come to finding something similar for livecoding…
on “Carp: a statically typed lisp, without a GC, for high performance applications” ↗They said the same thing about Build Your Own Lisp In C, and many other books. These are the people who worship the C spec, and will crucify you for daring to claim that your function takes an array as an argument. I'd take anything they say with a grain…
on ““Learn C the Hard Way” is no longer available for free” ↗> That and of course spending countless hours debugging segfaults and memory leaks. Maybe that's because you think that: > the best way for learning C has been [0] Build Your Own Lisp and Zed Shaw's [1] Learn C The Hard Way.
on “C for Python programmers (2011)” ↗tLoL doesn't really do that. I think you might be thinking of Build Your Own Lisp (And Learn C), another excellent book.
on “Forth: The Hacker’s Language” ↗Thanks for the reference to your project, I might use it as a guide for writing a language. I like the book "Build Your Own Lisp" because the simple implementation is easy enough to understand and hack. Using your example as a guide would be a second step for building something more practical. Very cool stuff.
on “Resources on creating programming languages” ↗I am a huge fan of Build Your Own Lisp in C. I knew how to program since I was a kid. It was all inelegant but working code. Using this website's walk through helped me to refine my understanding. Anecdotally, I suggested it to 2 beginners…
on “Ask HN: Your favourite tutorial for total beginners?” ↗…interpreters. There’s plenty of hn discussion on it and it was recently completed. 2. Writing a compiler in go. There’s also a book on interpreters that goes along handily with it from Thorsten ball as well. 3. Build your own lisp There’s also plenty of traditional textbooks such as the dragon book. I don’t have any lectures or videos on hand, but I’m sure teach yourself CS has a recommended course on it.
on “Ask HN: Online Compiler Courses?” ↗…for me to keep focused as I'm not really implementing anything other than the exercises and projects (for which there are too many IMO, and I struggle to get them all done). I've been working through Build Your Own Lisp in parallel, and it's great fun. I get to work on an actual project, and any holes I find in my knowledge can usually be filled in via A Modern Approach.
on “Learn C and build your own Lisp (2014)” ↗