Land of Lisp
by Conrad Barski · first published 2010
62% recommend31% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Fun, cartoon-filled way into Common Lisp that teaches the language by building games, including text-based ones. Its charm keeps beginners motivated, and it pairs well with Practical Common Lisp or On Lisp.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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As someone who learned a little Lisp in the last few years, I think there is a good collection of books available for the newbie who wants to learn. For Common Lisp, Land of Lisp, Practical Common Lisp, and Ansi Common Lisp all seem good enough to get hacking quickly. Thinking about community effects, I'm not as convinced a community represents a gating factor for hackers. I…
on “A Personal Lisp Crisis (2012)” ↗…hardcover of Art of the Metaobject Protocol for a while, I can make myself ready for it once I have it.) In HN tradition where we all recommend every book we've ever read similar to the submitted one (and Land of Lisp is worth reading), an overlooked recently published booklet I found is Common Lisp in the Wild: https://www.darkchestnut.com/book-common-lisp-application-de... Common Lisp is so flexible in letting you…
on “Land of Lisp (2010)” ↗…decide. If "functional programming for the enterprise" sounds good to you, read Clojure for the Brave and True. If you're more interested in a truly mature language with a more academic community, read Land of Lisp. If you're looking for a simple language that's easy to learn, or if metaprogramming is really your jam, read Realm of Racket. As far as editors go, just start with whichever one you personally like…
on “Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?” ↗For what it is worth I'm pretty sure Land of Lisp author Conrad Barski is an HN user as well. I think we talked at an HN meetup (but I don't know his id offhand). If you are reading this Conrad, congrats! The book looks great and seems very well received.…
on “Book review: Land of Lisp” ↗While I have not yet finished Dr Conrad Barski's "Land of Lisp", I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in an introductory book as I am really enjoying it.
on “How To Get Started With Lisp” ↗…Dive into HTML5 (if you are interested in web development. HTML is a markup language, but you are going to need it to be able to build web stuff. This book complements Eloquent Javascript nicely) -- Land of Lisp -- DOM Scripting (Pair this book with Eloquent Javascript. It's the best introduction to the DOM that I've seen and will bridge the gap between HTML and Javascript) The best books on coding are those…
on “Best program and books to learn how to code?” ↗"On Lisp" is a good book but perhaps too advanced for an introduction, whereas his "ANSI Common Lisp"[0] is better suited to the purpose. Barski's "Land of Lisp" has also received positive feedback.[1] I'd be interested to see what others consider a suitable general learning path for Lisp. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/acl.html [1] http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781593272814.do
on “Running Lisp in Production (2015)” ↗Save your money for Land of Lisp by Conrad Barski, coming out this month. http://www.amazon.com/Land-LISP-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159327...
on “Would you pay $62 for a Wikipedia article?” ↗Two outstanding books that will help anyone get started regardless of whether they have any coding background are Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw, and Land of Lisp by Conrad Barski.
on “It's not too late to learn how to code” ↗coincidentally I am working through land of lisp, recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159327... Do I see myself using lisp in production code? Not in the near future. I do think there is value in learning something that…
on “Why I like Common Lisp” ↗…the comic again and I cried, again! I have met Dr. Barski personally at a Clojure conference many years ago and I still remember him as an extremely kind and knowledgeable person. Thank you for the Land of Lisp, Dr. Barski! Some day, we will be able to assemble our guilds and beat the Insectoids for good. Until then,long live language du jour!
on “The Land of Lisp” ↗Lot of comments here, many good, so I'll try not to duplicate, but: 1. Emacs is a hurdle, but one that's worth it when you use SLIME. 2. I went through Barski's "Land of Lisp" and enjoyed it, but couldn't get the web server to work, so I tweaked it to use Hunchentoot[0] [0] - https://github.com/npsimons/land-of-lisp-using-hunchentoot/c...
on “Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?” ↗I'm assuming the author just made the one level. Iirc Conrad Barski is a medical doctor that made the famous Land of Lisp book for teaching Lisp programming. A pretty creative person. I assume the fun for them was in creating this and getting feedback and not necessarily coming up with 50 levels.
on “Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle” ↗…the long hall, gentrysherrill's advice of learning a functional language is a probably a good choice, but it shouldn't be Haskell. Scheme or Common Lisp is a better choice. Get Conrad Barski's new book Land of Lisp. Go through it first, then consider checking out the Little Schemer or How to Design Programs (version 2).
on “Ask HN: What is the best programming language to learn first?” ↗Land of Lisp is probably the best computer book I've read in the 5 or 6 years I've been programming. It manages to be informative and fun at the same time. Where most books teach you how to write boring crap like…
on “How To Get Started With Lisp” ↗