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299 lines
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<div class='copyright'>Copyright © 2003-2004, Peter Seibel</div>
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<blockquote class="twain">“I have been complimented many times and they always
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embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”
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—Mark Twain</blockquote>
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<h1>Blurbs</h1>
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<div class="blurbs">
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<p>“that book is dead
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sexy”—<span class="quotee">Xach on #lisp</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“Peter Seibel offers a fresh view of Lisp and its
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possibilities for elegantly solving problems. In Practical Common
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Lisp, he gives enough basic information to let you quickly see the
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power of the functional language paradigm. He then dazzles you with
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examples that seem almost magical in their simplicity and power. This
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read is pure fun from start to finish.”
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—<span class="quotee">Gary Pollice,
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from <a href="http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/187900423?pgno=4">Dr.
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Dobb's Portal, May 17, 2006 article on the 2006 Jolt
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Awards</a></span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“Peter Seibel's <i>Practical Common Lisp</i> is just what
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the title implies: an excellent introduction to Common Lisp for
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someone who wants to dive in and start using the language for real
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work. The book is very well written and is fun to read—at least
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for those of us whose idea of fun extends to learning new programming
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languages.
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<p>Rather than spending a lot of time on abstract discussion of
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Lisp's place in the universe of programming lnaguages, Seibel dives
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right in, guiding the reader through a series of programming examples
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of increasing complexity. This approach places the most emphasis on
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those parts of Common Lisp that skilled programmers use the most,
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without getting bogged down in the odd corners of Common Lisp that
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even the experts must look up in the manual. The result of Seibel's
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example-driven approach is to give the reader an excellent
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appreciation of the power of Common Lisp in building complex, evolving
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software systems with a minimum of effort.</p>
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<p>There are already many good books on Common Lisp that offer a
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more abstract and comparative approach, but a good ‘Here's how you do
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it—and why’ book, aimed at the working programmer, is a valuable
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contribution, both to current Common Lisp users and those who should
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be.” —<span class="quotee">Scott E. Fahlman, Research Professor of Computer
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Science, Carnegie Mellon University</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“This book shows the power of Lisp not only in the areas
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that it has traditionally been noted for—such as developing a
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complete unit test framework in only 26 lines of code—but also
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in new areas such as parsing binary MP3 files, building a web
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application for browsing a collection of songs, and streaming audio
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over the web. Many readers will be surprised that Lisp allows you to
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do all this with conciseness similar to scripting languages such as
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Python, efficiency similar to C++, and unparalleled flexibility in
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designing your own language extensions.” —<span class="quotee">Peter Norvig,
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Director of Search Quality, Google Inc; author of
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<i>Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in
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Common Lisp</i></span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“I wish this book had already existed when I started
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learning Lisp. It's not that there aren't other good books about
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(Common) Lisp out there, but none of them has such a pragmatic,
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up-to-date approach. And let's not forget that Peter covers topics
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like pathnames or conditions and restarts which are completely
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ignored in the rest of the Lisp literature.</p>
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<p>If you're new to Lisp and want to dive right in don't hesitate
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to buy this book. Once you've read it and worked with it you can
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continue with the ‘classics’ like Graham, Norvig, Keene, or
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Steele.” —<span class="quotee">Edi Weitz, maintainer of
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the <i>Common Lisp Cookbook</i> and author of CL-PPCRE regular
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expression library.</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“Two prehensile toes up!” —<span
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class="quotee">Kenny Tilton, comp.lang.lisp demon, reporting on behalf
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of his development team.</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“Experienced programmers learn best from examples and it
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is delightful to see that Lisp is finally being served with Seibel's
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example-rich tutorial text. Especially delightful is the fact that
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this book includes so many examples that fall within the realm of
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problems today's programmers might be called upon to tackle, such as
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Web development and streaming media.—<span class="quotee">Philip
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Greenspun, author of <i>Software Engineering for Internet
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Applications</i>, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and
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Computer Science
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</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“<i>Practical Common Lisp</i> is an excellent book that
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covers the breadth of the Common Lisp language and also demonstrates
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the unique features of Common Lisp with real-world applications that
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the reader can run and extend. This book not only shows what Common
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Lisp is but also why every programmer should be familiar with
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Lisp.” —<span class="quotee">John Foderaro, Senior
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Scientist, Franz Inc.</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“The Maxima Project frequently gets queries from
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potential new contributors who would like to learn Common Lisp. I am
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pleased to finally have a book that I can recommend to them without
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reservation. Peter Seibel's clear, direct style allows the reader to
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quickly appreciate the power of Common Lisp. His many included
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examples, which focus on contemporary programming problems,
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demonstrate that Lisp is much more than an academic programming
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language. <i>Practical Common Lisp</i> is a welcome addition to the
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literature.” —<span class="quotee">James Amundson, Maxima
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Project Leader</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“I like the interspersed Practical chapters on 'real' and
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useful programs. We need books of this kind telling the world that
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crunching strings and numbers into trees or graphs is easily done
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in Lisp.—<span class="quotee">Professor Christian Queinnec,
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Universite Paris 6 (Pierre et Marie Curie)</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“One of the most important parts of learning a
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programming language is learning its proper programming style. This is
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hard to teach, but it can be painlessly absorbed from <i>Practical
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Common Lisp</i>. Just reading the practical examples made me a better
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programmer in any language.” —<span class="quotee">Peter
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Scott, Lisp programmer</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“Finally, a Lisp book for the rest of us. If you want to
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learn how to write a factorial function, this is not your book. Seibel
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writes for the practical programmer, emphasizing the engineer/artist
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over the scientist, subtly and gracefully implying the power of the
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language while solving understandable real-world problems.</p>
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<p>In most chapters, the reading of the chapter feels just like
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the experience of writing a program, starting with a little
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understanding, then having that understanding grow, like building the
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shoulders upon which you can then stand. When Seibel introduced macros
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as an aside while building a test framework, I was shocked at how such
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a simple example made me really 'get' them. Narrative context is
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extremely powerful and the technical books that use it are a cut
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above. Congrats!” —<span class="quotee">Keith Irwin, Lisp
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Programmer</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“While learning Lisp, one is often refered to the CL
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HyperSpec if they do not know what a particular function does,
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however, I found that I often did not 'get it' just reading the
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HyperSpec. When I had a problem of this manner, I turned
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to <i>Practical Common Lisp</i> every single time—it is by far
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the most readable source on the subject that shows you how to program,
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not just tell you.” —<span class="quotee">Philip
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Haddad, Lisp Programmer</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“With the IT world evolving at an ever increasing pace,
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professionals need the most powerful tools available. This is why
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Common Lisp—the most powerful, flexible, and stable programming
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language ever—is seeing such a rise in popularity. <i>Practical
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Common Lisp</i> is the long-awaited book that will help you harness
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the power of Common Lisp to tackle today's complex real world
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problems.” —<span class="quotee">Marc Battyani, author of
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CL-PDF, CL-TYPESETTING, and mod_lisp.</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“Please don't assume Common Lisp is only useful for
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Databases, Unit Test Frameworks, Spam Filters, ID3 Parsers, Web
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Programming, Shoutcast Servers, HTML Generation Interpreters, and
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HTML Generation Compilers just because these are the only things
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happened to be implemented in the book
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<i>Practical Common Lisp</i>.—<span class="quotee">Tobias C.
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Rittweiler, Lisp Programmer</span></p>
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<hr width="50%">
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<p>“When I met Peter, who just started writing this book, I
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asked to myself (not to him, of course) ‘why yet another book on
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Common Lisp, when there are many nice introductory books?’ One year
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later, I found a draft of the new book and recognized I was wrong.
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This book is not ‘yet another’ one. The author focuses on practical
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aspects rather than on technical details of the language. When I first
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studied Lisp by reading an introductory book, I felt I understood the
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language, but I also had an impression ‘so what?’, meaning I had no
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idea about how to use it. In contrast, this book leaps into a
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‘PRACTICAL’ chapter after the first few chapters that explain the very
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basic notions of the language. Then the readers are expected to learn
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more about the language while they are following the PRACTICAL
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projects, which are combined together to form a product of a
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significant size. After reading this book, the readers will feel
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themselves expert programmers on Common Lisp since they have
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‘finished’ a big project already. I think Lisp is the only language
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that allows this type of practical introduction. Peter makes use of
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this feature of the language in building up a fancy introduction on
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Common Lisp.” —<span class="quotee">Taiichi Yuasa,
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Professor, Department of Communications and Computer Engineering,
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Kyoto University</span></p>
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<hr>
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<p class="request">Have something to say about this book?
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Something nice? Want to see it here? Send it along
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to <a
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href="mailto:book@gigamonkeys.com">book@gigamonkeys.com</a>.</p>
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<p class="back"><a href='index.html'>Back to index.</a></p>
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