Reviews for The ANSI Common Lisp Book (Prentice Hall Series in Artificial Intelligence)

1. Excellent technical book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12st, 2003

   Summary: A complete discussion of lisp and how it really works (not just fluff and buzz words).
   
   I read a bit about lisp on the net and decided it was time to learn how the most brackety language ever actually worked, so bought this book.
   
   I would strongly recommend this book to people who already have a good programming background are interested in gaining a proper understanding of lisp.
   If you don't have a strong background then this book will take a bit longer to read, but it is extremely clear in it's explanations of the concepts and explains the detail behind them that will save you from making confusing mistakes later on.
   
   All sections of the language are covered very clearly (imho) and the examples demonstrate some of the true power of the language very nicely.
   
   I especially liked the examples of 'large' systems at the end of the book which demonstrated actual use of the language.
   
   All I need to do now is find an excuse to write some lisp code...

2. A simple view of a complex language

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2003

   I bought this book a couple of years ago to help me with the declarative languages portion of my computer science course. I expected it to be another programming text book covering the basics of the language with a few examples as most books do. I was then plesantly surprised with the content of this book. It not only explains using real world examples, it also explains why it works like that. I was quite confident after reading this book that I could program useful applications, although I was following a course of lectures as well with probably helped my understanding. All in all an excellent book to get a grounding in LISP programming, Top Notch.