Lisp is often thought of as an academic language, but it need not be. This is the first book that introduces Lisp as a language for the real world.

Practical Common Lisp presents a thorough introduction to Common Lisp, providing you with an overall understanding of the language features and how they work. Over a third of the book is devoted to practical examples such as the core of a spam filter and a web application for browsing MP3s and streaming them via the Shoutcast protocol to any standard MP3 client software (e.g., iTunes, XMMS, or WinAmp). In other "practical" chapters, author Peter Seibel demonstrates how to build a simple but flexible in-memory database, how to parse binary files, and how to build a unit test framework in 26 lines of code.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 55 Ratings

Learn by example.... - 2009-07-12
Reviewer Rating:
This is "learn by example" book. You can learn a lot of stuff using this paradigm, but definitely NOT sophisticated programming language. This book received extremely good reception on comp.lang.lisp - "Hey, Lisp is not dead - we have new book". Unfortunately, I don't believe that this book will play essential role in reviving Lisp. I gave up, and converted to K&R of Lisp, namely Winston and Horn

A great introduction to Lisp - 2009-11-17
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a great way to get to know lisp. It doesn't assume you know anything, but it moves along quickly. This isn't lisp for idiots. This is lisp for people who like to think, but don't know lisp (yet). I highly recommend this book.

Great Book - 2009-10-02
Reviewer Rating:
This book is essential reading when you get started in lisp. I use it as a reference all the time. More often than not my Google searches lead back to this book. Thank you Peter.

Good text on Common LISP - 2009-09-22
Reviewer Rating:
The book discusses essentially all of the salient features of Common LISP in an accessible manner. A nice text to read for an AI researcher who has been for some years "away" doing work with theoretical computer science.

The best way to learn how to do real programming in Common Lisp - 2009-09-06
Reviewer Rating:
At my workplace, we use Common Lisp (among other languages) very heavily. When we hire new programmers who haven't used Common Lisp before, we give them "Practical Common Lisp", and they generally can get going very quickly, using Lisp in a way that's actually practical. If you are a serious programmer and want to write serious code in Common Lisp, this is far and away the best book.

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