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Let Over Lambda Paperback – April 2, 2008

by Doug Hoyte (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 61 ratings
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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. Only the top percentile of programmers use lisp and if you can understand this book you are in the top percentile of lisp programmers. 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 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.
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  1. Reading age
    1 year and up
  2. Print length
    384 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.85 x 9 inches
  5. Publisher
    Lulu.com
  6. Publication date
    April 2, 2008
  7. ISBN-10
    1435712757
  8. ISBN-13
    978-1435712751
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lulu.com; Edition 1.0 (April 2, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1435712757
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1435712751
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 1 year and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.85 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 61 ratings

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Doug Hoyte

Doug Hoyte

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
61 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Oodles of Noodles
5.0 out of 5 stars Confirms that Forth and Lisp are relatable
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2019
Verified Purchase
Only had this book for a few days, and I love it already, though it will take me a while to figure it out -- I have to learn Lisp first. Yes, this book is worth so much to me that I am willing to learn a (challenging) language just to be able to understand the book. You see, I want to be able to build some of LISPs strengths into Forth, like Factor and Joy did. It will be a trying journey, but worth it in the end. You see, math is truth, and LISP and FORTH are closer to math, and therefore closer to truth, which is a foundation you want to build on -- rock -- NOT shifting sands.
---
Here are some chapters and sub-chapters that look interesting to me:
* Macro Efficiency Topics
* Lisp Is Fast
* Macros Make Lisp Fast
* Writing and Benchmarking Compilers
* Lisp Moving Forth Moving Lisp
* Duality of Syntax, Defined
---
I am a Senior Developer of 20 years, FoxPro C# SQL Server, and an explorer of languages.
Five stars because this guy is an expert and a genius, and he wrote this so that I could learn from him.
Kudos!
---
Update 5-Nov-2019 Love this book. It confirms that the secret to Lisp's Macro power, and also Forths Metaprogramming strengths, lie both in the simplicity of the syntax of the languages (malleability) and in the homoiconicity (the shape of the code to modify the code, is the same shape as the code that is being modified.) Another way to express the homoiconicity is, for Lisp, everything is a list, and the full power of the language is available for writing macros (code that writes code, or code that writes DSL's, or code that extends and/or changes the language). For Forth, everything is a word, and runs on the stack, and once again the language used to modify the language has the full power of the language available. Contrast that with C or C++, where the "macro preprocessor" is a completely different language, a completely different shape, and fairly limited. You need all three for full macro power: simple syntax, full power, same shape (hopefully same language). Can I give it 6 stars?
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Matthew C. Lamari
5.0 out of 5 stars Advanced. Audacious. Inspirational.
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2008
Verified Purchase
Let over Lambda is an exploratory journey into advanced techniques involving Common Lisp features and language properties, that can be combined in ways that result in more than the sum of their parts.

There are plenty of "wow, that is cool" moments and useful constructs demonstrated, that will probably make it into the reader's toolkit. But of greater importance is the progression in how these are delivered. While not a broad tutorial in Common Lisp (although the reader-macro chapter could serve fairly well in that capacity), Let over Lambda contains an underlying tutorial on the incremental/iterative development of such macros/tools against desired requirements - building up to constructs via interim revisions and explanations.

A book involving Lisp has little choice but to stand on the shoulders of giants, and by necessity these are frequently referenced and cited. The most important of these is Graham's "On Lisp" (currently available for free download) - which, while attempting to cover the breadth of the language, is regarded as one of the more advanced texts on macros. Some topics introduced in On Lisp (such as the leveraging of unhygienic macros) are taken much further in Let over Lambda, and combined with other constructs (such as capture/closures) that would have to be described separately in more general purpose tutorial or language overview.

The writing style definitely includes an "attitude" that is partially inherent to the material being discussed and partially from the author's obvious passion (a passion that becomes REALLY obvious in the Forth chapter). Hoyte often highlights the blanket superiority of Common Lisp over all other languages; but to a reader who has put in the time to learn Lisp macrology in enough detail to understand this book, this isn't a particularly large stretch. Also, certain comfortable safety idioms are challenged as being more safeguards for beginners. On several occasions, the reader receives an explanation: "Here is the what and why of adhering to restriction X. Now here are the incredible things that become possible when you break it!" This is demonstrated via unhygienic macros, as well as the broader concept of "duality of syntax" - a definition that evolves throughout the book.

Early in the introduction Hoyte states that macros (in a language that can leverage them) are more than just boilerplate-reduction tools for known simple cases; but that their power represents a sort of "uncharted territory" of immense potential. Certain common (seemingly) ideological arguments (things like lisp-1 vs lisp-2), were laid out against a backdrop of examples and threaded into the theme of the entire book. While often going out on a limb, the author makes his case.

I was inspired by this book.
145 people found this helpful
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Phil Calçado
4.0 out of 5 stars Despite the annoying Common Lisp evangelism this is a great book for the non-novice Lisper.
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2011
Verified Purchase
If you know your way through the multiple flavours of Lisp this book becomes really interesting. Doug starts by explaining the basics of why one would want macros in a programming language and quickly moves on to extending the basic Common Lisp language with all sorts of new features; including a very sweet chapter implementing Forth macros. Most of the code is based on lexical closures, hence the book's title.

The opinion-to-fact ratio makes the book a very hard read, though. The usual arrogance towards different language and paradigms (please forget that section on Functional Programming) is somewhat expected but makes it really hard to enjoy the text.

Even though Hoyte's blind evangelism of Common Lisp is extremely annoying, he is a great hacker and knows how to reuse other people's work --even if originally written in one of the Lisps he despises.

If you are fairly new to Lisp in general and Common Lisp in particular I don't think you will find it very interesting. Even if you write code in Clojure -the Lisp most people I know are exposed to these days- I would recommend that you read the fantastic Practical Common Lisp, by Peter Seibel, before trying this one.

What I love most about this book is how it teaches you to think of macros as nothing but functions that return lists. The fact that these lists happen to contain code is irrelevant; macros are still functions.

Full review: [...]
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Mr JB Davies
5.0 out of 5 stars The surprising thing is that it is a surprising book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2023
Verified Purchase
I bought this book with low expectations as it appeared to be very opinionated. I guess more to amuse myself than anything else.

This is not perhaps as hardcore as the author would have you believe, but it is highly technical. However, as a non-lisp coder, I found it reasonably easy to understand.

This book really describes one corner of lisp programming that I barely knew anything about, which is macros. The really interesting thing that this book does is make it clear why they're a killer feature of lisp, and then make you pine for them in other languages.

Because of this book I am now honestly trying to code in lisp for the first time. It really has had that much affect on me.
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Amritpal s.
5.0 out of 5 stars Based-est book for a lisp programmer
Reviewed in India on June 1, 2022
Verified Purchase
The book is great and presented in a very understandable manner. The book is a must have. The appendices are great.
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Amritpal s.
5.0 out of 5 stars Based-est book for a lisp programmer
Reviewed in India on June 1, 2022
The book is great and presented in a very understandable manner. The book is a must have. The appendices are great.
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Brendon J. Robinson
5.0 out of 5 stars his approach is superior to Graham's
Reviewed in Canada on June 11, 2015
Verified Purchase
It took me a while to warm up to this book. Initially I thought that it rehashed Graham, albeit poorly. I was skeptical of some of Hoyte's comments in the book. After having some time to absorb them, I see that he was right all along and in fact, his approach is superior to Graham's. I didn't think much of it at the time I first read the book but as the ideas sunk in, I became a better programmer.
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Andrew Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Aufschlußreich und mitreizend
Reviewed in Germany on May 26, 2015
Verified Purchase
In Let Over Lambda veranschaulicht Hoyte zahlreiche fortgeschrittene Methoden und Ideen, einige Eigenschaften von Makros und "Closures" in Common Lisp sorgfältig auszunutzen, die bisher fast nur als gefährlich oder unbedeutende Kuriositäten betrachtet worden sind, um beeindruckend flexible, knappe und sichere Programme zu erstellen. Solche Methoden werden kurz im Buch "On Lisp" von Paul Graham vorgestellt, und Hoyte entwickelt sie weiter. (Ich empfehle Ihnen deshalb, erstmal "On Lisp" zu lesen, was sowieso ein von den besten Lisp-Büchern ist). Außerdem wird ein anderes Thema gründlich besprochen, das (so weit ich weiß) anderswo nur oberflächlich behandelt wird, und zwar: die Optimierung von denjenigen Common-Lisp-Programmen, die hauptsächlich auf Makros aufgebaut sind, mit Hilfe der modernen, quell-offenen Compilern wie z.B. CMUCL und SBCL. Hoyte gibt zahlreiche Beispiele davon, wie solche Lisp-Code in Assemblersprache übersetzt wird, und versucht das Code schrittweise zu optimieren (zum Teil auch durch Makros!), damit die Übersetzung so kurz wie möglich ist. Er bespricht dabei auch Sortierverfahren, und erstellt Programme sehr hohen Leistung (sogar im Vergleich mit C/C++), ohne dass er selber überhaupt etwas in Assemblersprache oder sonst was schreiben muss. Dadurch will er zeigen, dass es sich gar nicht mehr lohnt, in "Low-level programming languages" (den deutschen Begriff kenne ich leider nicht – auf Englisch bezeichnet das Assembler, C usw... Die Letztere wird auch mit Humor "portable assembly" bezeichnet!) zu programmieren. Es kann alles durch Common Lisp alleine gemacht werden, und diese befähigt einen, immer auf einer höheren "Abstraktionsebene" (jetzt bin ich mit der deutschen Sprache überfordert) zu programmieren, was seine Produktivität viel erhöht und die Zahl "Bugs" im Programm auf ein Minimum beschränkt.

Let Over Lambda war mir ziemlich schwierig zu lesen, einfach nur, weil ich noch wenige Erfahrung (ungefähr ein Jahr) mit Common Lisp habe; jedoch ist alles im Buch gut erklärt, man muss sich aber schon ein wenig damit auskennen (wie gesagt: On Lisp). Übrigens ist Hoyte ziemlich rechthaberisch, was vielleicht einige Leser (besonders die, die sich bisher ausschließlich mit anderen Programmiersprachen und Paradigmen beschäftigt haben) nerven könnte; aber er rechtfertigt seine Meinungen durch klare und überzeugende Erklärungen sowie durch die Ergebnisse seiner ausführlichen Experimenten. Der Autor scheint zweifellos begabter Hacker zu sein, und nicht nur in Lisp, sondern auch in Programmiersprachen, die er kritisch beurteilt. Man braucht ja nicht, ihm zuzustimmen: nur aufgeschlossen zu sein, damit man seine Ideen verstehen kann. Wer Interesse daran hat, wie Programmiersprachen (und die Programmierung selbst) in der Zukunft weiterentwickelt werden könnte, soll dieses Buch lesen. Wer schon großer Lisp-Fan ist, wird unbedingt viel Spaß am Lesen des Buches haben. Und der, der immer noch nicht von den Vorteilen Common-Lisp überzeugt ist, soll es auch lesen.
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Pierre
5.0 out of 5 stars Très bon livre
Reviewed in France on October 20, 2010
Verified Purchase
Ce livre est très intéressant et très spécialisé. Il s'agit d'une étude complète de ce que sont les macros dans le langage de programmation LISP.
Si vous recherchez un livre pour apprendre LISP, ce n'est assurément pas le livre qu'il vous faut. Vous trouverez sur internet de très bonnes ressources ([...]) vu que les livres sur le sujet, étant donné l'âge du LISP, sont assez rares.
Si, en revanche, vous avez déjà une bonne connaissance de LISP, que vous souhaitez étudier tous les aspects de ces objets extraordinaires que sont les macros, objets qui donnent à LISP ce caractère si particulier qui le distingue des autres langages alors ce livre est pour vous.
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