Ask HN: Learning Lisp?

Re:Ask HN: Learning Lisp? by dontJudge on Sunday January 01, 2017 @04:46PM (#13297554)

This article is good to get an idea what lisp is all about.

http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/lisp.html

It compares lisp to XML. In that you are programming in a tree. Other languages must be parsed into a tree by the compiler, but with lisp you are already there from the get go.

Programming in a tree is the "magic" that's unique to lisp. And it is a big deal.

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Re:Ask HN: Learning Lisp? by bubblesocks on Sunday January 01, 2017 @07:11PM (#13298179)

Lisp is awesome, but I think you're doing it a disservice by comparing it to XML, which is a technology that was derived straight from Satan's bottom. Lisp is elegant. XML, not so much.

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Re:Ask HN: Learning Lisp? by kazinator on Monday January 02, 2017 @09:32AM (#13301294)

It's useful to compare Lisp to XML from the data notation aspect. As in, look, we already had better ideas for tree-structured data being communicated in text, forty years before XML.

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Re:Ask HN: Learning Lisp? by jonaf on Sunday January 01, 2017 @07:22PM (#13298228)

This isn't exactly relevant to the OP, but, what's wrong with XML?

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Re:Ask HN: Learning Lisp? by jonaf on Sunday January 01, 2017 @05:02PM (#13297630)

Thanks. These gems are particularly the kind of insight I am relying on HN for!

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