The little LISPer
by Daniel P. Friedman · first published 1974
65% recommend35% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Playful, question-and-answer introduction to recursion that works through exercises, even on paper without a computer. Suits beginners and programmers who want recursion and functional thinking to feel natural.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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The Little Schemer is an updated version of The Little Lisper. It also happens to be much cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/02... It's an excellent introduction to thinking recursively. The others in the series (The Seasoned Schemer,…
on “Programming books I have read and somewhat liked” ↗The Little Lisper: http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-LISPer-Third-Edition/dp/002...
on “Ask HN: What's the best technical eBook you have read?” ↗Dan Friedman books The little lisper/schemer, The reasoned schemer etc all follow this kind of questioning dialog. It's a bit annoying at times, but it really drives the point at the end. The method should be used more often.
on “Socratic method to teaching by asking” ↗…MICROLISP differs from other versions of LISP, and what features it implements. A good reference for learning LISP is Weissman's LISP 1.5 Primer (see Bibliography). We also can recommend Friedman's The Little LISPer as an enjoyable introduction. MICROLISP is a cassette-based microprocessor implementation of an interpreter for LISP, a programming language useful for symbol processing. The MICROLISP interpreter is…
on “MakerLisp: Embedded Lisp Machine” ↗I remember reading that great book 'The Little LISPer' by Daniel Friedman. I really enjoyed it. With the rise of lambda expressions in C# and soon in Java7, and other developments like the Clojure language - it seems that these ideas are back on the radar,…
on “100 Days of the Little Lisper” ↗The Little Lisper by Dan Friedman. It is probably 30 years out of publication but I pulled it off of my shelf the other day, reread it, and the next day I noticed that my code had improved. It is a quick read, nothing…
on “Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?” ↗"The Little LISPer", by Daniel Friedman, brought FP home for me.
on “Ask HN: Top 10 Timeless Software Books That ChangedLife as Software Engineer?” ↗There is a book called The Little Schemer (was The Little Lisper) - a book all about recursion. This is a quote from a review: Little Schemer is without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of recursion, and what is interesting because they…
on “How recursion got into programming: a comedy of errors” ↗…about 01960; I don't think plasma displays had much to do with it.) I learned the basics of linear algebra in high school largely from a "programmed instruction" book inspired by Skinner's work. The Little Lisper family of books is the best example I've seen of this in recent decades. It's a shame that Watters is committing so many malapropisms in this article ("operating conditioning", plus incorrect uses of…
on “The Engineered Student: On B. F. Skinner’s Teaching Machine” ↗"Javascipt The Good Parts" is to the Rhino book what "The Little Lisper" is to the hyperspec.
on “Who need XSS when you can simply ask?” ↗I'd just like to note how fun the book Starting Forth is. It's a bit like The Little Lisper in that it's entertaining (there are comics), but thicker, with a fuller treatment of the material.
on “ForthOS - standalone operating system written in Forth” ↗…non-trivial problems. While there's a good explanation of Lisp basics, the actual game examples use some pretty advanced coding techniques. It would definitely help to be familiar with recursion. ('The Little LISPer'/'The Little Schemer' is a perfect introduction to recursion.) Conrad Barski's style is enjoyably idiosyncratic, but - despite the illustrations and blurb - this is not a book for the beginning programmer!
on “Humble Book Bundle: The Joy of Coding” ↗…answer is: work through all the exercises in The Little Schemer. If you actually do this (not just read it!), recursion will be easy and natural by the end of the book. (Or its previous incarnation, The Little Lisper).
on “How to Get Better at Recursion” ↗Have you considered trying books filled with structured exercises? I worked through The Little Lisper when I was at university and I got a lot out of it, for example.
on “Books that changed my career as a software engineer” ↗…good book on Euclidean geometry that has a lot of exercises in it. Finally, pick up a good book on Lisp that has a lot of exercises in it and do all the exercises in it. Winston and Horn is good. "The Little Lisper" is also good.
on “Where does a wannabe hacker begin?” ↗