As somebody who read a couple of the author's books, and also somebody who spent almost a decade studying compilers, I am genuinely curious about the author himself.

These works are something I both understand and would never achieve myself. These are cultural artifacts, like deeply personal poetry, made purely for the process of it. Not practically useful, not state of the art, not research level, but... a personal journey?

If the author is reading this... can you share your vision? Motivation?

The entire website of the author is worth exploring: https://t3x.org/index.html

I love it so much, and seeing your bibliography makes me feel like a kid in a candy store. The confluence of Asian philosophy and computing is delightful.

To put you in the correct headspace this Saturday morning: https://t3x.org/whoami.html

Looking at file church.scm from the provided zip file [1], I see the following functions used to construct lists:

    (define kons
      (lambda (x) (lambda (y) ((pair false) ((pair false) ((pair x) y))))))
    
    (define kar   (lambda (x) (first (second (second x)))))
    (define kdr   (lambda (x) (second (second (second x)))))
    
    (define nil   ((pair true) ((pair true) false)))
    (define null  first)
    
    (define atom  (lambda (x) (first (second x))))

    (define kons
      (lambda (x) (lambda (y) ((pair false) ((pair x) y)))))
    
    (define kar   (lambda (x) (first (second x))))
    (define kdr   (lambda (x) (second (second x))))
    
    (define nil ((pair true) false))
    (define null (lambda (x) (((second x) (lambda (a) (lambda (d) (lambda (z) false)))) true)))
    
    (define atom  (lambda (x) (first x)))

    (((second list) (lambda (a) (lambda (d) (lambda (z) deal_with_car_a_and_cdr_d ) deal_with_nil)

Purchased the author's `Scheme 9 from Empty Space` book and loved it. Lots of very well-commented and explained code, on how to build a language up from the beginning. So much fun.

https://t3x.org/s9book/index.html

"What else are lists, but alternatives?"

(credit to https://aphyr.com/posts/340-reversing-the-technical-intervie..., I always get a kick out of that and the follow up https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview).

Looks awesome. Just ordered a copy. I'm just now picking up Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp again and taking another stab at immersing myself in the world of Lisp. So this is perhaps fortuitous timing.

I love Lisp (I'm an Emacs user and often write in Racket for personal projects) but the one thing I never understood about the Lisp community is the emphasis placed on metacircular evaluators.

I sure find them beautiful and all, but why do they take center stage so often? Beside the aesthetics and instructional value, I don't get the appeal. Also I feel that a bunch of the heavy lifting behind metacircular evaluators is actually done by the Polish notation syntax as well as the actual implementation, and these concepts don't get nearly as much love.

Any Lisper who can illuminate me?

I clicked on this and immediately wanted to buy it. But then someone in the comments said to also look at your other books and well damn, now I want to read all of them and I can't choose which to start with.

Related:

Lisp from Nothing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24809293 - Oct 2020 (29 comments)

Lisp from Nothing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24798941 - Oct 2020 (5 comments)

Second edition, with a new chapter on lambda calculus.

The book looks awesome. However, I find some irony in the presence of a “no AI” badge on the back cover considering Lisp was AI research.

Has anyone here read his “Practical Compiler Construction”? It’s on of the shorter compiler books Ive seen, seems like it might be a good way to learn a bit more about assembly

Under “The Intended Audience” (page 10 of the PDF sample on the site), it says that this is not an introduction to LISP and that it would be more enjoyable with some prerequisites.

Where does one — who has no knowledge of these prerequisites or about LISP (except that the latter has been heard in programming circles as something esoteric, extremely powerful, etc.) — start, before reading this book?

Can anyone compare this with Queinnec's Lisp in Small Pieces? I was waiting for an English version of the 2nd edition but I guess it's never happening and my French has unfortunately regressed since then.

The title "Lisp from nothing"

doesn't seem to fit with:

"INTENDED AUDIENCE This is not an introduction to LISP."

on page 10.

Did you guys hear Ladybird is gonna be ClojureScript by default /dream

tug2024 wrote: > Doesn’t lisp extend lambda calculus (abstraction . application)? As a consequence, lisp (abstraction . application . environment)!

Another valid question downvoted into oblivion.

The environment in (lexically scoped) LISP is an implementation detail. Lambda calculus does not need an environment, because variables are substituted on a sheet of paper. So lambda calculus equals lexically scoped LAMBDA in LISP.

Sure, you could view LISP as LC plus some extra functions (that are not easily implemented in LC).

A hacker and a mystic. We need more of those.

"... and the chicks for free "?

Damn. I ordered the first edition a few weeks back and now the second edition is out :D

[dead]

When it will stop ? The minimal languages... To be useful for something language need to have at least minimal standard library.

Or just possibility to do syscalls to do something. What is more important then new syntax and sugar over basic instructions.