Let Over Lambda Is Now Free Online, 50 Years After Lisp's Birth
Let over Lambda–50 Years of Lisp
Doug Hoyte's Let Over Lambda, published in 2008 to mark Lisp's 50th anniversary, is now free to read online in HTML and PDF. The book dives into the most advanced features of Common Lisp, centered on macros — programs that write programs — and the abstraction, productivity, and security they enable. Hoyte says his views have evolved, but the book still holds up as a tutorial on why Lisp is special.
Macros let you do things you simply cannot do in other languages.
- heisig
The main novelty here is that the author just made the entire book available to the public for free.
I have previously read the printed version, so maybe now is a time for a very brief review. The book is technically fascinating and a worthwhile read, but it is also highly opinionated even by Lisp standards. Then again, it is refreshing in this time and age to see this deeply human and creative side of programming. I wholeheartedly recommend others to read it - and to carefully choose which of the advice to follow and which not :)
Thank you so much, Doug Hoyte, for making this book available to all of us!
- mark_l_watson
I bought and read Doug’s book years ago, glad to see it surfaced here with the announcement that a PDF and HTML version is available.
I have been programming in Common Lisp since the early 1980s, love the language, but I just use the language simply. That said I like the things that Doug, Paul Graham and others write about great Common Lisp techniques.
- Quitschquat
This and On Lisp were mind blowing for me at the time.
Checkout the Forth implementation in https://letoverlambda.com/index.cl/guest/chap8.html