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efitz

This is the first article I’ve ever read that made me want to go learn Lisp.

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Watch Rich Hickey's early Clojure videos and be blown away.

Got any specific suggestion?

"Simple Made Easy" is pretty popular, there is a transcription with slides:

https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...

I like "Clojure, Made Simple" even more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=028LZLUB24s

Someone helpfully pulled out this chunk, which is a good illustration of why data is better than functions, a key driver of Clojure's design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSEQfqNYNAc

It's tangentially relevant, but I've enjoyed this one, about hammock driven programming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

Lispworks has a free editition with lots of examples. Look into PAIP from Peter Norvig.

Even putting the common lisp aside, PAIP is my favourite book about programming in general, by FAR. Norvig's programming style is so clear and expressive, the book touches on more "pedestrian" parts of programming: building tools / performance / debugging, but also walks you through a serious set of algorithms that are actually practical and that I use regularly (and they shape your thinking): search, pattern matching, to some extent unification, building interpreters and compilers, manipulating code as data.

It's also extremely fun, you go from building Eliza to a full pattern matcher to a planning agent to a prolog compiler.

Paul Graham's On Lisp is also a powerful argument to try the language, even if some of the stuff it presents is totally bonkers. :-D

https://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html

what are the bonkers parts? (just curious)

The use of anaphoric exprssions is not something I think I could recommend. But it's fun to read about.

Next time you see a HN post on a lisp-centric topic, click into the comments. I'll bet you a nickel that they'll be happier than most. Instead of phrases like "dumpster fire" they're using words like "joyful".

That's why I keep rekindling my learn-lisp effort. It feels like I'm just scratching the surface re: the fun that can be had.

Never been happier since building an Erp system in pure lisp and postgresql.

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