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Comment by drcode | Hacker News Reader

Hi HNers- I'm Conrad (aka drcode) the author of said book. Thanks guys for helping build the buzz around LOL! (I should also thank pg for getting me into this stuff in the first place.)

I'll be lurking in this thread today and tomorrow... feel free to post any questions about the book or about Lisp in general and I will answer them.

Here's the only coupon code currently for the book. I'm posting it exclusively on HN and proggit: 76738380768586 (ASCII for LISPLUV :-)

It gives a 35% discount on the Book+eBook combo on the No Starch site (http://nostarch.com/lisp.htm). It expires 11/3. (FYI- If you just want the eBook, No Starch already has a 50% off sale right now across the board. If you only want the print copy, Amazon has a heavily discounted price already, for reasons that are mysterious to me. Oh, and if you've already pre-ordered, just cancel and reorder to get the discount.)

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Congrats on the release. I'm excited to finish reading the book. I just thought you should know, however, that there's a minor mistake (I think) in some of the walkthrough stuff in the pdf. On page 56:

  >  (defun pudding-eater (person)
      (cond ((eq person 'henry) (setf *arch-enemy* 'stupid-lisp-alien) '(curse you lisp alien – you ate my pudding))
  	    ((eq person 'johnny) (setf *arch-enemy* 'useless-old-johnny) '(i hope you choked on my pudding johnny))
  	    (t '(why you eat my pudding stranger ?))))

  > (pudding-eater 'johnny)
  (I HOPE YOU CHOKED ON MY PUDDING JOHNNY)

  > *arch-enemy*
  JOHNNY

arch-enemy at this time should hold the value 'useless-old-johnny, not 'johnny

Yes, you are right- You found the first errata!

At least the intent of the code is still clear.

It seems to work for me.

  CL-USER> (defvar *arch-enemy* nil)
           (defun pudding-eater (person)
             (cond  ((eq person 'henry)(setf *arch-enemy* 'stupid-lisp-alien)'(curse you lisp alien - you ate my pudding))
           	    ((eq person 'johnny)(setf *arch-enemy* 'useless-old-johnny)'(i hope you choked on my pudding johnny)) 
          	    (t'(why you ate my pudding stranger?)))) 

  PUDDING-EATER
  CL-USER> *arch-enemy* 
  NIL 
  CL-USER> (pudding-eater 'johnny) 
  (I HOPE YOU CHOKED ON MY PUDDING JOHNNY) 
  CL-USER> *arch-enemy* 
  USELESS-OLD-JOHNNY 
  CL-USER>

But LISP is immune to bugs!?! What gives??

You've also put together an amazing site for the book! Both the video and comic are hilarious and top notch. I'd send anybody curious about Lisp to your book site in a heartbeat.

Long Live Lisp.

Hah this is awesome. Not only from a coding perspective, but from one artist to another - congrats. I really enjoyed that comic about Lisp fleet. Comic also exposes one nasty thing about it - there is no single implementation that has all of the fleet's features. Do you recommend some specific implementation to go with your book? Anyways, first check that comes in November and I'm buying. Congrats on your project once again, really looks like something special!

I think Common Lisp, Scheme, and Clojure each have a lot to offer. I wish there was one perfect Lisp :)

I think it was Appel who had a funny proof for the non-existence of the Perfect Compiler, it can be applied to Lisp quite easily.

FWIW, the proof used the halting problem and went like this. Assume there is a an unoptimized program that, when ran, would go through a series of motions but ultimately halt without any useful output or side-effect. Assume there existed a perfect compiler, PC; that compiler would need to be sufficiently smart enough to translate the problem to a single HALT instruction (or "Label X: goto X".) But since the halting of programs can not be proven analytically, it stands to reason that PC does not exist.

Actually, this could be done if the program didn't use any print or input commands. In general, it still cannot be done.

I said "without any useful output or side-effect". I/O falls under those categories.

I should mention that the book primarily uses Common Lisp.

What a wonderful step in the direction of making Lisp "cool." The site is great, the comic is witty and wonderful, and — after meeting the No Starch guy a few years ago — you chose a great publisher.

Thanks for this wonderfull book! I have just bought the printed book with the pdf. Very very good!

This might be just the perfect companion to "Pratical Common Lisp" by Peter Seibel. I always thought PCL is an excellent book for someone who already knows some Lisp. With these two books, I believe you really achieve a powerfull combo to start learning and using Lisp!

And the music is very cool too :-)

Firstly, congratulations on completing the book.

Will this book be available for Kindle by any chance?

My understanding is it will appear on the kindle in the near future (though I don't know the process for this 100%)

If your contract with NoStarch permits, my startup (http://fifobooks.com/) could do this for you.

I.e., we could produce a native ebook (not pdf) file for the Kindle, iPad, Nook, Sony, and a bunch of other dedicated e-reader devices.

Thanks for the discount code Conrad, I just used it to buy the print+PDF book.

Also: I have really enjoyed your writing on the web for a long time!

I enjoyed the comic. There is a typo in the last panel. It says "Doug the developer and and the others could now return to their programming, no longer in fear of bugs." The word "and" is repeated.

Thanks

And you found yourself a happy customer. You had me at balancing weasels on a rake. (Or, well, at the discount. Hard to fight against my poor German genes.)

Sweet! Your Casting SPELs in Lisp was one of the things that first got me interested in Lisp years and years ago. :)

Just ordered. (The ebook seems to be working fine now.)

Hey I just bought a copy of the e-book but I can't download it yet there's only a dummy file.

Hi- I just talked to my No Starch contact and they said the PDF should appear any moment- apologies... a little glitch on take-off.

Great, thanks!

Hi- The glitch is fixed- You should have just received the correct PDF... Email me at lisperati@gmail.com if this is not the case.

Congratulations on getting the book out (and for the 30% off you gave me)! My only question so far is about the comic...what's the point of the 3 panels in the training facility? Is the 'hug' joke supposed to be funny?

I was trying to make fun of the Wii controller... oh well, you can't win them all...

Oh, OK. I think I got the joke and then thought 'oh, that can't be it'. It did give a nice break to the pacing of the story, though.

awesome! I was putting off ordering this while I finished reading Joy of Clojure, but the coupon code forced my hand. Thanks - Looking forward to the print copy arrival.

Thanks for the book, and the discount. I've never took the time to really learn Lisp, even though I took a class on it in college. Excited to dig in to Land of Lisp!

Thanks. I had been waiting for this book for a long time.

After some 3 attempts of download, I could download the book. All I can say is that this book is really awesome!

Greetings from India. Just purchased eBook + Print. Thanks a bunch for discount. I look forward to become a LISPer. Cheers!

Will there be a Kindle version of the ebook?

yes- takes a couple more weeks to get the mobi file, free with pdf purchase.

I'm really glad you made an mp3/ogg version of the song available. It's been on repeat all morning.

Awesome!! Congratulations - I know it was a long haul, but it looks like it was well worth it.

Any plans for a epub version? :)

Yes- I believe it will show up in a week or two.

Will it be available if I purchase the PDF or should I wait?

Someone else asked this... I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

Please do lets us know about this, I read PDFs on my computers and ePubs on my portable devices.

And thank you for the book and the awesome video and comic! :-)

Yes, it'll be free to download a couple of weeks after you buy the PDF.

Conrad, this was awesome! Excellent work! Ordering...

I preordered your book, can't wait for it to come!

purchased, looks fun!

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