Thursday, November 11, 2010

Landed in the '(Land of Lisp)

The last two days haven't been great in terms of the time I spent learning. But, one good news is that I have started reading Land of Lisp by Dr.Conrad Barski. I had decided that I would not read any other lisp book till I completed SICP. But, as I started reading LoL, I was hooked to it. The introduction really led me to read the other chapters and now, I don't feel like stopping it. SICP is going to take some time because of this and some other side projects.

A few pages discussed the history of Lisp and how to get CLisp on your computer etc.. On Ubuntu, clisp installation needed just one command, as is the case with thousands of other software. Once the lessons started, I was confused after the vague introductions to code-mode and data-mode etc., but there were a few "we will discuss this in great detail in Chapter X". The book has a good flow and though the cover, comics and video give a not-so-serious feel to it, they were used in moderation.

I liked the way Scheme code looked. There was no need to see data very differently from procedures. Having to write (function function-name) or using #' as shorthand did not look pretty. There must be reasons behind this special treatment of functions which, I hope and think, will be explained in the book. Dr.Barski himself told that CLisp is about raw power and Scheme is about elegance and mathematical rigor. One of the many strange cartoons that have already passed compares CLisp to a wolf and Scheme to a beautiful sheep full of wool.

I have started going out for walking in the evening with my father. I somehow need to hack my daily schedule to get as much out of it as possible. I am reaching saturation sooner than before (while reading). Music helps, but even that hasn't helped these days. Should I think about relaxing the stress a bit? Or should I keep training my body and mind to take it?

No comments:

Post a Comment