Common Lisp
by David S. Touretzky · first published 1989
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Beginner-friendly introduction to Lisp and functional programming, with a recursion chapter many credit for making the idea click through simple, non-mathematical examples. Suits newcomers to programming.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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I learned functional programming many years ago, by reading the book COMMON LISP: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by David S. Touretzky [1]. Incredible book, super beginner friendly; the chapter on Recursion in particular is one of my favourites. :) [1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/book.pdf
on “Ask HN: How did you learn functional programming?” ↗For me, it was Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation that finally made recursion click. He gives a fantastic, simple, high-level breakdown of different recursion models with simple, non-mathematical examples.…
on “Ask HN: Do you recall any book or course that made a topic finally click?” ↗…own personal experiences, try "How to Design Programs" (HTDP) by Felleisen et al as an introduction to Scheme. Its a great educational book which really prepares you for SICP. Also if you want to give Common Lisp a try, I'd highly recommend "Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation" by David S. Touretzky. Its an old book but well worth its price in gold. It is the simplest way to really get Common…
on “Ask HN: Which Scheme book to read?” ↗Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by David S. Touretzky is solid for learning the fundamentals of thinking in and writing lisp. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/ Bump for the K&R as…
on “Ask HN: What are some of the best written programming books?” ↗How about this? It's even freely available nowadays: https://www.amazon.com/Common-LISP-Introduction-Computation-...
on “Why Lisp Failed (2010)” ↗I'm assuming you mean Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation — http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/index.html — which, yes, is a wonderful book for a complete beginner.
on “They Called It LISP for a Reason: List Processing (2005)” ↗…and doing so is quite easy, since you're effectively already working at the AST level. And you can do all of this in a running REPL without even needing to restart it. If you're interested, check out Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation by David S. Touretzky. [0] Macros are the other piece of the puzzle, but to understand them you would need to read up on Lisp more. Once you understand…
on “Hy 1.0 – Lisp dialect for Python” ↗I've tried a few different books, including Land of Lisp, PCL, SICP, Chassel's Introduction to Emacs Lisp, but what I'd recommend head over shoulders above them all is buying a copy of Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle introduction to Symbolic Computation. It's wonderfully thought through, really helped me finally grok elementary stuff like what a cons cell is, exactly how apostrophes function, what asymbol…
on “A Road to Common Lisp (2018)” ↗…towards making it easy to focus on the concepts. That said, I agree with the above poster about not tackling SICP if he doesn't like math. Alternatively HTDP, Concrete Abstractions and Touretzky's book (Common Lisp) are interesting alternatives.
on “Brother Needs Help Learning to Program” ↗I learned functional programming from "Common Lisp: a gentle introduction to symbolic computation" (David Touretzky) and "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (Abelson and Sussman). If you have better sources, I am open to rethinking what…
on “What is functional programming?” ↗I am going through Touretzky's Gentle Introduction to Common Lisp and I recommend it. You can download the entire book in pdf for free, or buy an updated version of the book. I don't see much difference between the two.
on “Ask HN: Who is using Common Lisp?” ↗One of the most beautiful introduction to recursion is in Chapter 8 using dragon stories, of the `Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation` book by David S. Touretzky. [1], is the link to the free pdf. [1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/book.pdf
on “I thought I understood recursion” ↗…best resource [1] I have used for recursion to 1. Learn 2. Review 3. Teach The topic on recursive data structures in linked pdf is even more fun!!! [1] https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15110-f12/Touretzky-Common-Lisp-ch8....
on “Thinking About Recursion” ↗A vote for "Common Lisp [as] the best language to learn programming": "Between Land of Lisp, David Touretzky's Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation (really great book for people new to programming, available…
on “Sugar – a typed lispy language targeting webasm/wat” ↗I started out with Common Lisp and David S. Touretzky's book[1]. The great thing with Lisp or Scheme as a first language is that it requires learning very few concepts and very little little syntax to get started. Lisp isn't terribly…
on “Ask HN: Elixir as a First Language?” ↗