Subject: Re: Learning CLOS? From: Erik Naggum <clerik@naggum.no> Date: 1998/04/11 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3101324328261855@naggum.no> * Kelly Murray | "Object-Oriented Programming in Common Lisp: A Programmers Guide to CLOS", | by Sonya Keene, published by Addison Wesley ISBN 0-201-17589-4 | | Written in 1988, it's 10 years old, but nothing has changed since it was | written. I don't know if it's actually still in print. In my opinion, | it's still one of the best books about CLOS. let me second that. I'm lucky enough to have a friend who has been interested in Common Lisp many years more than I was able to take advantage of it, and he had a spare copy of this book when I vented my frustration with CLOS some years back. the problem with the CLOS chapter in CLtL2 is that you have to know how it all basically works before it makes any sense, and I was unable to understand much from it. (CLOS felt almost like C++.) Sonya Keene managed in a very nice way to demonstrate why the power is needed as well as to show how to command it for simple and advanced cases alike. after reading Keene, CLtL2 made sense and actually became readable, although I _much_ prefer the ANSI specification these days. and thanks to the Harlequin Group and Kent Pitman for making the HyperSpec¹ available; programming by specification has never been easier. the standard is usable as introductory material the way it is organized, but Keene will guide you the necessary steps to be able to fully appreciate the excellent reference materials. I wonder what it would take to make this book electronically available. Addison-Wesley does not appear to want to reprint it. the chapters on CLOS in Paul Graham: ANSI Common Lisp made _me_ feel he was brooding on a book dedicated as much to CLOS as On Lisp was dedicated to macros and didn't want to tell too much too early. others have found his book as valuable as I found Sonya Keene's, so maybe it's just a matter of which book you read first. #:Erik ------- ¹ http://www.harlequin.com/books/HyperSpec/ -- religious cult update in light of new scientific discoveries: "when we cannot go to the comet, the comet must come to us."