Some Lisp books (and then some)
Some Lisp books
caveat: tthis is not a best-of nor a comprehensive list of Lisp books; it is merely a selection of Lisp books you may not have heard of or that special to me in some way. If you find this post interesting then you might like my yearly best-of posts.
My first Lisp book:
My first Lisp:
My favorite undergrad Lisp/Prolog book:
My favorite Lisp:
The best Lisp book I’ve ever read and could ever possibly read1:
Mind-blowing and bombastic:
excerpts at the author’s site
The best Clojure book for beginners:
Language implementation 101:
Some books are worth any price
On Lisp by Paul Graham
Compiling with Continuations by Andrew Appel2
Lisp in Small Pieces by Christian Queinnec
LISP 1.5 Programmer’s Manual by John McCarthy
Applicative Higher-order Programming by Stefan Sokolowski
PAIP
:F
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This is one of those “I wish I had written this” books.
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Appel also wrote a series of compiler implementation books in various languages that I’ve yet to read. Any thoughts on the series?
18 Comments, Comment or Ping
Brit Butler
Of Appel’s compiler texts, I’ve heard that Modern Compiler Implementation in ML is the one to get. The C++ and Java variants were literal translations from the ML code so they aren’t very idiomatic or nice to read. I’ve heard excellent things about the book from compiler hackers I respect such as Nikodemus Siivola and Slava Pestov. shrug
Jul 25th, 2012
fogus
@Brit_Butler
Thank you for the information. My instincts told me that ML was the way to go, but I’ve yet to take the plunge.
Jul 25th, 2012
James Iry
Re footnote 2: Appel’s compiler impl books are pretty good beginner compiler writer books. What’s interesting is that they decompose an actual compiler (written in various languages depending on the book) rather than present a series of techniques in pseudo-code that you have to figure out how and when to apply.
Unfortunately, that also means you’ll get a pretty good intro to techniques used in that particular compiler while missing out on techniques that might be useful in other cases, e.g. for other target language types.
Jul 25th, 2012
John Hinnegan
I was sad to see that Practical Common Lisp was not on the list. It was one of my favorite programming books (not just Lisp specific). It was really great because you built real projects towards the end. It focused on getting you up and writing code in LISP, spending some time on dev environments and doing solving some practical problems.
Maybe not the best for exploring the full power of LISP, but a really great intro.
Jul 25th, 2012
Scott
http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html
On Lisp free download at Paul’s website.
Jul 25th, 2012
Brandon Harvey
V. curious to know what is so appealing about The Architecture of Symbolic Computers?
Jul 25th, 2012
fogus
@Scott
I had completely blanked on the “On Lisp” free link. Updated. Thanks.
Jul 25th, 2012
fogus
@Hinnegan
PCL is a great book, and one of my favorites. However, my goal was to highlight lesser-known Lisp books.
Jul 25th, 2012
fogus
@Brandon_Harvey
I will write a comprehensive review ASAP. Let me just say that it has everything.
Jul 25th, 2012
john
Hi fogus, just a few days ago I attended a presentation about List machines.. Afterwards I asked if made sense to buy the book “The Architecture of Symbolic Computers “(Mcgraw-Hill Series”). I received the advice that the book is all in all too general and the lecturer would not recommend the book… May I therefore ask what you liked about the book? I’m just asking because the book is quite expensive…..
Jul 25th, 2012
john
sorry bad timing and what a coincidence I just read your comment at @Brandon_Harvey too late……..
Jul 25th, 2012
Kai
SICP, now and forever – a book that doesn’t just happen to use Lisp/Scheme to teach computing, but instills a sense of elegance and expressiveness that resonates in the reader’s mind:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
Jul 25th, 2012
Geoff Wozniak
Just to chime in on Appel’s books and to agree with Brit, Modern Compiler Implementation in ML is the one to get. I got it and read it. It’s worth it.
I think the others were written for marketing purposes, probably at the insistence of a textbook publisher.
Jul 25th, 2012
Alex Ott
Very interesting list of books. I’m trying to maintain up-to date list of FP-related books, including Lisp: http://alexott.net/en/fp/books/#sec12 (although, I separated Lisp from Scheme and Clojure)
Jul 26th, 2012
Carlo Hamalainen
I have scanned the table of contents and index of Kogge’s book so that people can see what it covers (I had trouble finding a copy): http://carlo-hamalainen.net/blog/2012/08/15/kogges-the-architecture-of-symbolic-computers-1991/
Aug 14th, 2012
gary knott
Here’s another lisp book: “Interpreting LISP”
http://www.civilized.com/files/lispbook.pdf
Aug 29th, 2012
Gareth
Still planning to review “Architecture Of Symbolic Computers”? I’m kind of intrigued.
Oct 16th, 2012
Justin Heyes-Jones
This is great. I collect old and weird lisp books. A couple of suggestions: LISPCraft by Robert Wilensky (CL was dynamically scoped when this was written). Object-Oriented programming in Common Lisp by Sonya E Kleene, LISP by Winston (I’ve got 2nd and 3rd editions for some reason)
Mar 26th, 2013
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