(How to Write a ((Better) Lisp) Interpreter (in Python)) | Hacker News Reader

(How to Write a ((Better) Lisp) Interpreter (in Python))

norvig.com

121 pointsshawndumas10 comments

Inexplicably, this conversation from earlier today (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745322) hasn't been linked, yet.

If you're interested in programming, than I insist you read _Paradigms of Artificial-Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp_ yesterday. That's probably in my top five programming books EVER, and I've read a LOT of programming books. Your brain could gnaw on that sucker for months. Its pseudocode is in Lisp, but it's about real programming - don't write it off as just a lisp book.

Also, if you have a good question, he might answer.(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943633)

The author mentioned that this page is not quite ready yet -- I think he meant to give the code a bit more polish, and I guess that's why lispy.html has reader's comments while this doesn't.

call/cc, for one, certainly needs more work. Maybe at least a mention that this implements escape continuations and not the full continuations that, say, DrRacket implements.

I really enjoy Norvig's writing. Will wait for it to be finished.

Full continuations would be a major change to the code, and would disallow calling Python functions that call Scheme back. (E.g. right now you could add 'map' to the toplevel by just binding Python's map().) But yes, I'd mention the difference.

I can also believe it's "in progress." I wanted to know more about the picture tagged as "First Lisp Interpreter." Checking the link revealed that it is amazingly to the dynamic(?) Facebook(!) resize of:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steve_Russell-PDP-1-2...

(So it's Steve Russell in the front of the PDP-1)

and I wouldn't expect the Facebook service to be used in the final version.

Discussion of the previous essay: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745322

Yes, and also all credit does go to kroger[1] for the link to the new essay!

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[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745379

My comment about this being "not quite ready yet" no longer holds. I shouldn't have posted it, I think, because it might've killed the discussion.

Anyway, this is the best Lisp-in-Python I've seen, including my own.

Tis nice, but real hackers write scheme in perl:

http://billhails.net/Book/interpreter-intro.html

+1 For a cracking headline

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