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Just started learning Emacs Lisp. Common Lisp is on my todo list. Glancing through these tasks, I realize I have a lot to learn before I can call myself proficient. But I am very eager. Started reading Guy Steele and Touretzky. Love the concepts, the simplicity, homoiconicity, Lisp macros, and the fact that it is time tested.

## Edit

Years ago when I was confronted with a new technology that caught my interest, I‘d ask myself: Is it in use? Is it wide-spread? Is it used by companies in commercial situations?

My questions have changed. Now I tend to apply questions like: Does the hacker in me get excited? Does this technology help me solve problems? Does it make my life easier?

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Try this guide - it’s quite a good and concise introduction and will get you coding quickly. It can be read alongside a textbook:

https://github.com/ashok-khanna/common-lisp-by-example

(Disclaimer: I’m the compiler of this guide)

Looks good, thanks. Will you include more topics that are missing now?

Nah, it was a conscious choice to limit the amount of material in the guide as not to overwhelm the beginner.

The various textbooks on lisp are great and this wasn’t aimed to replace them, but just guide the reader through the initial phase where they may be overwhelmed.

Awesome guide :). I've been meaning to learn the basics of LISP since trying out Emacs and this was finally an easy enough introduction to it that I've read a fair amount. Thanks for this!

Your welcome :) I was (am) in the exact same shoes as you, so I wrote notes along the way , hence us beginners “get” it ;)

Good luck and I hope to see you as a pro lisp programmer in a few months!

I love the guide. Thank you very much, abhinav22.

You are most welcome Kelamir :)

I ported lisp-koans to elisp https://github.com/jtmoulia/elisp-koans

It's still rough and doesn't include @phoe-krk's latest changes (forked 1.5yrs ago), but I found it super useful for learning lisp.

About the questions that has changed over time. I see them as questions that depend on the context rather than experience and/or time.

If you're trying to build something many people should be able to build upon, you as a developer should be easily replaceable and you want to have a high hiring pool with mid-level developers (like how the typical startup thinks), then your first questions are more appropriate.

But if you're looking to build something for fun, to scratch your own itch or trying to do something more innovative than a CRUD app, then perhaps your latter questions are more appropriate.

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