Brian Mastenbrook wrote:
Thanks for the experience. The Common Lisp community moves rapidly these days, and you may not find it as impractical (ha!) as it used to be. For starters, we have discovered lowercase letters, and write "Lisp" or "Common Lisp" (abbreviated to CL) :-)
I still can't bring myself quite to using Lisp (instead of LISP) ;-)
I would suggest you look at this guide to getting set up to learn Common Lisp: http://www.unmutual.info/startingwithcl.html . The book that is recommended there, Practical Common Lisp ( http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ ), is quite an excellent text and available both in an upcoming hardcopy version and in full text online.
I'm familiar with that; I hadn't realized how far along he had gotten now...
I have "On Lisp", and "The Common Lisp Cookbook", as well as the printed Common Lisp Specifications (green book, outdated, pre-standard). I never realized how readable a standard could be....
If you start with these resources I can pretty much promise that learning modern CL will be enjoyable and very practical.
Best thing is to get a LISP and start hacking on it. I picked up over the years PLISP for the Apple II and TI PC-Scheme - and finally clisp and SBCL. I never did much until I started working with SBCL.