Let Over Lambda – 50 Years of Lisp

Let Over Lambda is one of the most hardcore computer programming books out there. Starting with the fundamentals, it describes the most advanced features of the most advanced language: COMMON LISP. The point of this book is to expose you to ideas that you might otherwise never be exposed to.

This book is about macros, that is programs that write programs. Macros are what make lisp the greatest programming language in the world. When used properly, macros enable amazing feats of abstraction, programmer productivity, and code efficiency and security that are unheard of elsewhere. Macros let you do things you simply cannot do in other languages.

If you are looking for a dry coding manual that re-hashes common-sense techniques in whatever langue du jour, this book is not for you. This book is about pushing the boundaries of what we know about programming. While this book teaches useful macro skills that can help solve your programming problems today and now, it has also been designed to be entertaining and inspiring. If you have ever wondered what lisp or even programming itself is really about, this is the book you have been looking for.

Macros are the single greatest advantage that lisp has as a programming language and the single greatest advantage of any programming language. With them you can do things that you simply cannot do in other languages. Because macros can be used to transform lisp into other programming languages and back, programmers who gain experience with them discover that all other languages are just skins on top of lisp. This is the big deal. Lisp is special because programming with it is actually programing at a higher level. Where most languages invent and enforce syntactic and semantic rules, lisp is general and malleable. With lisp, you make the rules.

Lisp has a richer, deeper history than all other programming languages. Some of the best and brightest computer scientists throughout our field’s brief existence have worked very hard to make it the most powerful and general programming language ever. Lisp also enjoys a number of concise standards, multiple excellent open-source implementations, and more macro conveniences than any other programming language. This book uses only COMMON LISP but many of the ideas are trivially portable to other lisps like Scheme. That said, hopefully this book will convince you that if you want to write macros, COMMON LISP is the lisp to use. While different types of lisp are excellent for other purposes, COMMON LISP is deservedly the tool of choice for the macro professional.