Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[O.Hamann]

If you are new to Lisp in common, then I would argue for the visit of 
one of the interactive online tutorials for lisp beginners (sth. like 
http://art2.ph-freiburg.de/art/login-e.html, but there must exist more) 
and perhaps a look into the book "Land of Lisp".


But picolisp behaves different and has many shortcuts for efficient and 
'solve tasks in a few lines of code' coding - so don't stay too long in 
the 'common lisp area'.


If you are more experienced and looking for common problems to solve 
with picolisp, then the picolisp section of rosettacode.org may be a 
fine resource to get some hints.


Have fun!

O.

On 08.06.2016 14:08, Lawrence Bottorff wrote:
So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner? 
It might seem like you should just bite the bullet and learn regular 
Common Lisp first, then start learning picolisp. That is, you should 
know all the capabilities of Lisp before you try to learn a derivative 
Lisp. Is this true?


LB

Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[Mike Pechkin]

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 3:08 PM, Lawrence Bottorff <borg...@gmail.com> wrote:

> So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner?
>

Real coding of any task is the best way to learn any programming language.

Mike
​

Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[Henrik Sarvell]

I would say PL is much easier, less cruft.

Start with picolisp.com

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 2:08 PM, Lawrence Bottorff <borg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner? It
> might seem like you should just bite the bullet and learn regular Common
> Lisp first, then start learning picolisp. That is, you should know all the
> capabilities of Lisp before you try to learn a derivative Lisp. Is this
> true?
>
> LB
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Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[Alex Gilding]

I get the impression comparing CL to Picolisp is a bit like comparing C++
to Javascript* - they look similar only if you stand far enough away from
the screen...

(* there isn't really a C-family language that fits the example, but anyway)

On 8 June 2016 at 14:46, Joe Golden  wrote:

> I've written some simple programs in Common Lisp and I agree that pico
> hues more to the original spirit of McCarthy in it's simplicity and power

Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[Joe Golden]

I've written some simple programs in Common Lisp and I agree that pico hues 
more to the original spirit of McCarthy in it's simplicity and power.  I say 
learn pico first then you probably won't need CL ;-)

All that said, it's hard for newbies to learn.  I don't expect it to be easy.  
I don't think Picolisp needs to be accessible to everyone.  The masses choose 
Java, etc.  I'm not the smartest guy around, but I'm conversant with perl, 
drupal, php, bash, linux and run my own Debian systems.  Lispthink is different 
and picolispthink is differenter.

I think there could be more tutorials to ease the learning curve for beginning 
picolisp learners.  Picolisp is a dense and powerful language.  The standard 
tutorial is likewise dense: http://software-lab.de/doc/tut.html.  It covers 
some of the basics and touches on things like pilog which is similar to prolog 
which is a language unto itself!

I've found the rosetta code examples occasionally helpful and the 99 problems 
to be to be good for basics http://picolisp.com/wiki/?99problems.  Debian does 
a great job of comments in config files, etc.  I think pages like 
http://picolisp.com/wiki/?99p27 (the solution to problem 27) would be much more 
helpful if they were commented.  People say good programmers aren't good at 
documentation: it bores them.  They wrote the code, solved the problem and want 
to move on to the next challenge.  I think in general picolisp programmers are 
good programmers ;-)

I'd suggest reading the standard tutorial first to figure out the basics of 
interacting with picolisp and the REPL. If you want to grok the basics 
thoroughly, I think you then start with baby steps on the 99 problems.  The 99 
problems are not sexy, but they're great for foundational knowledge and lispy 
concepts.

Wondering what others suggest for a syllabus or roadmap.  I get the "pick a project 
and dive in" recommendation, but for PL newbs that's a deep dive (with possible 
hidden rocks beneath the surface!).  Like the OP, I'm trying to learn PicoLisp.

Apologies if this an answer/question.  Thanx for any insight or suggestions.

On Wed, Jun 08, 2016 at 12:52:56PM +, Jon Kleiser wrote:

If you have no Lisp background, and what you want to learn is PicoLisp, then I 
don’t think learning Common Lisp first will be any advantage. I believe Common 
Lisp differs quite a bit from PicoLisp.
If you have experience with some other popular language X, then you can compare 
the Rosetta Code solutions for X and PicoLisp, 
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:PicoLisp.
You should also study this tutorial http://software-lab.de/doc/tut.html, and 
when you have questions, use this mail list, or the IRC channel, 
irc://irc.freenode.net/picolisp.
To keep yourself motivated, I think it’s smart to pick a nice little task (not 
too complicated) that you want to solve, using PicoLisp. Go for it!

/Jon


On 8. Jun, 2016, at 14:18, Jakob Eriksson <ja...@aurorasystems.eu> wrote:

It's more like Common Lisp is a derivative of PicoLisp, seriously. :-) So I'd 
go for pico first, it's easier to understand.


8 juni 2016 kl. 14:08 skrev Lawrence Bottorff <borg...@gmail.com>:

So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner? It might 
seem like you should just bite the bullet and learn regular Common Lisp first, 
then start learning picolisp. That is, you should know all the capabilities of 
Lisp before you try to learn a derivative Lisp. Is this true?

LB




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Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[Jon Kleiser]

If you have no Lisp background, and what you want to learn is PicoLisp, then I 
don’t think learning Common Lisp first will be any advantage. I believe Common 
Lisp differs quite a bit from PicoLisp.
If you have experience with some other popular language X, then you can compare 
the Rosetta Code solutions for X and PicoLisp, 
http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:PicoLisp.
You should also study this tutorial http://software-lab.de/doc/tut.html, and 
when you have questions, use this mail list, or the IRC channel, 
irc://irc.freenode.net/picolisp.
To keep yourself motivated, I think it’s smart to pick a nice little task (not 
too complicated) that you want to solve, using PicoLisp. Go for it!

/Jon

> On 8. Jun, 2016, at 14:18, Jakob Eriksson <ja...@aurorasystems.eu> wrote:
> 
> It's more like Common Lisp is a derivative of PicoLisp, seriously. :-) So I'd 
> go for pico first, it's easier to understand. 
> 
>> 8 juni 2016 kl. 14:08 skrev Lawrence Bottorff <borg...@gmail.com>:
>> 
>> So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner? It 
>> might seem like you should just bite the bullet and learn regular Common 
>> Lisp first, then start learning picolisp. That is, you should know all the 
>> capabilities of Lisp before you try to learn a derivative Lisp. Is this true?
>> 
>> LB

Re: Best way to learn picolisp

[Jakob Eriksson]

It's more like Common Lisp is a derivative of PicoLisp, seriously. :-) So I'd 
go for pico first, it's easier to understand. 

> 8 juni 2016 kl. 14:08 skrev Lawrence Bottorff <borg...@gmail.com>:
> 
> So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner? It 
> might seem like you should just bite the bullet and learn regular Common Lisp 
> first, then start learning picolisp. That is, you should know all the 
> capabilities of Lisp before you try to learn a derivative Lisp. Is this true?
> 
> LB

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Best way to learn picolisp

[Lawrence Bottorff]

So, what would the best way to learn picolisp be for a total beginner? It
might seem like you should just bite the bullet and learn regular Common
Lisp first, then start learning picolisp. That is, you should know all the
capabilities of Lisp before you try to learn a derivative Lisp. Is this
true?

LB