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Title: Lisp (3rd Edition) by Patrick Winston, Berthold Horn ISBN: 0-201-08319-1 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 01 January, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $42.19 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Perfect book for beginners
Comment: This is an excellent book for Lisp beginners. Topics are explained in details without confusing the concepts. My main language is not English but this book is so clear that I can read as if it was written in my own language.
I strongly recommend it for "Lisper"s !
Rating: 3
Summary: For a limited audience.
Comment: Review for 2cd edition: I would recommend this book only to people who haven't seen Lisp at all and are fairly new to programming in general. To be brief:
- not a language reference
- of little use to people who already have some Lisp experience
- not a model for learning finer points of lisp programming style
- not a 'how does lisp really work'- building interpreters and compilers book.
The book is regarded as a classic of sorts, but I didnt feel there was anything particularly outstanding about it, though it is well written. The first half covers basic programming and the rest is a series of applications/examples, mostly AI-ish stuff. Some of these later chapters are interesting, some lame, and a few feel a little outdated. I felt the discussion of lexical/dynamic scoping was very poor (perhaps the 3rd edition has improved this), and in general the book tries to ignore or brush off the more complicated (but very important) issues in lisp. The chapter on object-oriented programming was written before OOP became popular and more standardized. The final chapter on lisp interpreters (in lisp) was much too short. But it looks like a fine place to start learning Lisp, though you will quickly need additional books (and you may want to consider Scheme instead of Common Lisp).
Rating: 4
Summary: Old but still very good
Comment: Winston and Horn's "Lisp" is an old chestnut. It has stuck around, undergone several editions, and remains in print for a reason; it's a very clear and thorough introduction to programming in Lisp (and, beginning with the 2nd edition, it is specifically about Common Lisp, the most widely adopted dialect of Lisp). In fact, it's probably the best introduction to Lisp there is; yet it's not the right book for every beginning Lisp programmer.
This book is apparently intended for programmers who are not only new to Lisp, but fairly new to programming in general. Consequently, it would not be the ideal book for a seasoned programmer who already knows multiple languages and simply wants to learn one more. I suspect that such a person would find this book a bit on the pedantic side, as it covers basic concepts at length. A better place to start for experienced programmers would probably be Paul Graham's fine book "ANSI Common Lisp", or perhaps even, "Lisp in Small Pieces" by Christian Queinnec, which covers interpreters and compilers in addition to Lisp programming. If you are looking for a very complete reference on Common Lisp (as opposed to Scheme), then Guy Steele's book "Common Lisp, The Language" is the right choice; it's another old chestnut. Finally, if you are not set on Common Lisp, you may want to consider "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson, Sussman, and Sussman, which is a Scheme classic.
Winston & Horn's book has some very nice features. It not only covers all the basics, it also covers CLOS, the "Common Lisp Object System", which is to Common Lisp what C++ is to C; that is, it is an addition to Common Lisp (essentially a "layer") that allows the programmer to define classes, sub-classes (with inheritance), and methods. In my opinion, CLOS is by far the most compelling reason to use Common Lisp rather than Scheme. Winston & Horn also do an admirable job of explaining both "lexical" and "dynamic" scoping, with the former being the most important. In fact, it is essential to understand "lexical closures" before one can write effective Lisp programs, which is why Winston & Horn devote so much attention to them, even developing a kind of graphical representation for them.
Over all, this is a fine introduction to Common Lisp, and programming in general. It's an oldie but a goodie.
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Title: ANSI Common LISP by Paul Graham ISBN: 0133708756 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 02 November, 1995 List Price(USD): $47.00 |
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Title: Common LISP : The Language by Guy Steele ISBN: 1555580416 Publisher: Digital Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 1984 List Price(USD): $65.95 |
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Title: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (2nd Edition) by Stuart J. Russell, Peter Norvig ISBN: 0137903952 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 20 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $86.00 |
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Title: Artificial Intelligence (3rd Edition) by Winston ISBN: 0201533774 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 15 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $98.00 |
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Title: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming : Case Studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig ISBN: 1558601910 Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Pub. Date: 01 October, 1991 List Price(USD): $66.95 |
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