Subject: Re: lisp "philosophy" ? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 01:30:21 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3225317433304024@naggum.net> * Martin J. Brown, Jr. | I've just started working with lisp. I've downloaded a number of tutorials | from the web, some better than others. What I'm not getting from them is a | lisp "philosophy" (??), a description of how to look at a problem through lisp | colored glasses... If you look too hard, you will never see it. | so lisp is list processing, so what? No, Lisp is not list processing. | How do I look at some problem as a list? If that's how to do it. No, that is not how to do it. | If I can understand lisp, "grok" it, then the rest is just syntax and | functions. No, this is not so. | I hope I'm explaining myself, what I'm looking for. No, but I understand what you might be satisfied with. | If you have a pointer to some online material that explains the lisp | "philosophy", I'd appreciate it if you would pass it on to me. The collected writings of Common Lisp people will give you one philosophy, and the collected writing of Scheme freaks will give you quite another philosophy. | I'm not looking for a treatise, just something short, a couple of | paragraphs or a page. No can do. | Thank you for any suggestions you may have. Pay for a real book. It is very unlikely that you will be able to pick up what you want from on-line resources. They all sort of assume that you have already grasped what you seek in a sort of abstract way, even the tutorials (which I think are all seriously deficient). /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.