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Land of Lisp

Conrad Barski's Lisp book, Land of Lisp, is out. There's an example chapter implementing a Hunt the Wumpus remake. The book was previously mentioned with an April's 1st special, War of the Worlds.

Comments? Critiques?

Blurb:

Lisp has been hailed as the world’s most powerful programming language, but its cryptic syntax and academic reputation can be enough to scare off even experienced programmers. Those dark days are finally over—Land of Lisp brings the power of functional programming to the people!

With his brilliantly quirky comics and out-of-this-world games, longtime Lisper Conrad Barski teaches you the mysteries of Common Lisp. You’ll start with the basics, like list manipulation, I/O, and recursion, then move on to more complex topics like macros, higher order programming, and domain-specific languages. Then, when your brain overheats, you can kick back with an action-packed comic book interlude!

Along the way you’ll create (and play) games like Wizard Adventure, a text adventure with a whiskey-soaked twist, and Grand Theft Wumpus, the most violent version of Hunt the Wumpus the world has ever seen.

You'll learn to:

* Master the quirks of Lisp’s syntax and semantics
* Write concise and elegant functional programs
* Use macros, create domain-specific languages, and learn other advanced Lisp techniques
* Create your own web server, and use it to play browser-based games
* Put your Lisp skills to the test by writing brain-melting games like Dice of Doom and Orc Battle

With Land of Lisp, the power of functional programming is yours to wield.

By Ohad Kammar at 2010-10-28 21:16 | Misc Books | other blogs | 26155 reads

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Grand Theft Wumpus

Now I'm curious.

By dmbarbour at Thu, 2010-10-28 22:29 | login or register to post comments

It's posted online as a sample chapter.

See the "example chapter" link at the top of the main article. (I had posted the link here, but then realized that was already in the article. Oops.)

Looks like a pretty thorough introduction to basic graph-manipulation with lists.

By Brooks Moses at Fri, 2010-10-29 06:17 | login or register to post comments

Yeah

Not as impressive as I was hoping. Just Hunt the Wumpus with a different backstory...

By dmbarbour at Fri, 2010-10-29 08:21 | login or register to post comments

But the promo video is

But the promo video is definitely something new.

By stefan at Fri, 2010-10-29 15:16 | login or register to post comments

Other changes?

Isn't Hunt the Wumpus traditionally done on a Cartesian grid, too, not a random graph?

By Brooks Moses at Sat, 2010-10-30 20:17 | login or register to post comments

* Alas, the graph is not a dodecahedron any more

*

By johnwcowan at Fri, 2010-10-29 00:54 | login or register to post comments

What an awesome comic!

I can't see how any person even remotely interested in what LISP is all about would not be attracted by the comic and the easy-to-use links to LISP features.

Outstanding! As one who has taught IT/programming for many a year (sadly, no LISP, though) I recognize the makings of a great teaching tool when I see it.

By loumarco at Fri, 2010-10-29 18:38 | login or register to post comments

'Lazy' guild

It seems to me that the Lisp's 'lazy' guild is even lazy at zapping bugs. I thought that interestingly revealing. Haskell's attempts to be rid of them quite eagerly (if not quite strictly ;-).

By dmbarbour at Fri, 2010-10-29 23:53 | login or register to post comments