Found in 9 comments on Hacker News
mr_spothawk · 2024-04-28 · Original thread
here's a fun book called Land of Lisp. It'll give you a reason to work in Emacs, and you can start learning Lisp too.

https://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/15932...

I keep a journal in Org Mode, and that's how I've learned to use emacs.

kreelman · 2023-01-18 · Original thread
I think "Practical Common Lisp" is pretty good. The wikipedia for it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_Common_Lisp

A direct link to the PDF is here too. https://github.com/ccceye/computer-book/blob/master/Practica...

Another interesting one is "Land of Lisp", https://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/15932...

It's more theoretical, but kind of fun. It's a touch more academic (IMHO) than Practical Common Lisp, but pretty good.

momo-reina · 2020-04-19 · Original thread
Algorithm book using Lisp

https://leanpub.com/progalgs/read#leanpub-auto-data-structur...

Or a book like Barski’s Land of Lisp

https://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/15932...

I would start with Common Lisp.

Land of the LISP looked fun when I skimmed it at a bookstore. Teaches by building games.

https://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/15932...

jarcane · 2015-02-16 · Original thread
The classic systems were worlds ahead of most modern ones in one very important respect: documentation.

The Tandy/Radio Shack books for the Color Computer series (and it's astoundingly good LOGO implementation) were amazingly clear and concisely written with lots of examples, and because in those days even a disk drive wasn't a guarantee, all the examples were written to be hand-typed and experimented with.

There were even books in those days that aimed to teach kids machine language! [1]

That said, I think Djikstra and Felleisen may be slightly right about the long-term usefulness of old-fashioned BASIC and LOGO for learning, but there are a few books in modern languages that come close.

Hello World![2] was explicitly written to hearken back to those old manuals, by a father aiming to teach his 12-yo son programming with Python.

Land of Lisp[3] and Realm of Racket[4] also call to mind those old books as well, though they're targeting a bit older audience and have their quirks (LoL is a bit in-love with huge nested trees and a-lists in the examples, and Realm of Racket tends to gloss over a lot of the examples and expects you to just read the sample code rather than walking you through the process completely).

The Little Schemer[5] is also a fantastic little book that takes on the form almost of a set of brain-teasers, and teaches recursive thinking entirely by example and in methodical detail. The later chapters can be a bit stumpy, but if you go through the book step by step in regular sessions it builds on itself pretty well.

All of these are aiming at around the 12+ age range though, I don't think there's much out there anymore for anything younger.

[1] http://boingboing.net/2013/05/16/1983s-wonderful-introducti....

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Hello-World-Computer-Programming-Begin...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159327...

[4] http://www.amazon.com/Realm-Racket-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159...

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/02...

hvd · 2014-09-07 · Original thread
coincidentally I am working through land of lisp, recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159327... Do I see myself using lisp in production code? Not in the near future. I do think there is value in learning something that exposes you to thinking in different ways, till now what Ive gained is that Python is pretty lispy!
blacksmythe · 2012-09-18 · Original thread

  >> The learning curve is tremendous.
Try "Land of Lisp" http://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159327...

sedachv · 2010-10-11 · Original thread
'"Learn You A Haskell" is very good, and I haven't seen anything like it for Common Lisp.'

It's actually inspired by Conrad Barski's 'Casting SPELs in Lisp' (http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html), which in turn was inspired by Why's Guide to Ruby (I think). Conrad Barski actually wrote a Haskell comic book tutorial that predates 'Learn you a Haskell' (http://lisperati.com/haskell/). Not only that, but Conrad's full-length Lisp tutorial comic book, Land of Lisp, is due to hit the shelves in four days: http://www.amazon.com/Land-Lisp-Learn-Program-Game/dp/159327...

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