On Lisp (1993)

38 ibobev 5 4/28/2025, 9:39:14 PM paulgraham.com ↗

Comments (5)

bko · 2d ago
This was the best most intuitive explanation of lisp syntax and why's it's natural and so powerful

https://stopa.io/post/265

cracauer · 11h ago
Excellent book to learn compile-time computing.
jimbokun · 2d ago
From the Table of Contents, the similarities with Norvig’s Principles of Artificial Intelligence Programming in terms of topics covered are striking. Seems like building up to a Prolog interpreter is a thing in Lisp programming books.
zitterbewegung · 2d ago
Actually building an metacircular Lisp interpreter is the dominant thing to do in Lisp Programming books . There are a few exceptions such as the little lisper series .
TruffleLabs · 9m ago
Building Scheme in Scheme is what I did for a class in 1982 with Prof. Dan Friedman, one of the Little Lisper authors.

This was during a period of language research where Scheme in Scheme in Scheme was being used to look in to how to reflection (look into programs and how they behave).

The Little Lisper was a starting point for students to learn lisp (or Scheme) and get used to tail recursion and short focused functions.