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Hey, I'm a relative newbie to programming. I've picked up some very basic Java (File I/O, GUIs, inheritance) and would like to take a look at functional programming - in particular, I would like to learn Scheme. I'm having some trouble finding a Scheme implementation I can understand. Interpreters are weird; I'm not sure how to save my programs and create executables. I've downloaded PLT Scheme, but I would prefer using something less condescending, something similar to NetBeans. Is there a plugin or tool that will allow me to quickly and easily create and manage Scheme programs? All help is appreciated!
some nice links for you
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
http://www.htdp.org/
both are course books. The courses with video lectures are available on the MIT opencourseware site.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/index.htm
I wish I had learned Lisp when I was 16. (I started programming commercially at that age.) I didn't learn it until I was nearly 40. Where I was once blind, now I can see. (Well, I can see a few inches ahead of me anyway.)
I second the idea that someone else here posted about learning Emacs.
One good way to learn any language is to go solve problems on projecteuler.net.
Try the book The Little Schemer, it provides an unconventional but yet easy to follow tutorial on Scheme, and in particular teaches you how to "think" recursively, which is essential in order to understand Scheme (and other functional programming languages).
Get DrRacket (Runs on any platform)
Get a book used from Amazon "The Scheme Programming Language" Cost $3.00 book $4.00 shipping
When you open open DrRacket use language from the pull-down menu.
enter
scheme
on the top of the script window and start on the exercises!
.....that's what I am doing now
SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs) is sure a great book, but it is not necessary a good introduction to Scheme programming. Though, after some understanding of Scheme, reading SICP is recommended.
Learning to use Emacs as an editor would be useful. As a Scheme implementation I would recommend something like CHICKENscheme. Its manual describes for example how to deploy programs.
An alternative is a Scheme development environment like JazzScheme.
A good book for learning Scheme would be The Scheme Programming Language.
I think the docs for plt-scheme is quite nice http://docs.plt-scheme.org/ is worth reading
and also: write code, write code, write code
Maybe this isn't the best answer but one of things I have found over the years is that a lot of new programmers get pulled in too many directions. If you are just starting out the best thing you can do (my opinion) is to learn one programming language really well. If possible I would try to make this the language you are working in, if you are not working in a programming job then I would try to pick a language with the best prospect of getting a job. Once you have mastered this one language then learning other languages will help enhance your already solid foundation and help make you an exceptional programmer.
Don't get me wrong, learning Scheme is a great thing to do but until you have mastered one language you will have a harder time moving up the ranks and landing that perfect job. In the end most companies are looking to hire the guru's, make sure you are in this group.
I took a programming languages course in college that was done entirely in Scheme, and the textbook we used is "Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation" by Shriram Krishnamurthi, one of the guys who helped write DrScheme. The textbook is available freely online. I found the book to be really helpful and informative when trying to understand the arcane mysticism of Scheme.
A nice beginner intro to Lisp is Common Lisp First Contact
Not a heavyweight course like SICP mentioned above, but a gentle introduction
to the syntax, features and oddities of Common Lisp in a nicely formatted PDF
optimized for screen reading.
Well I can't help You much with the tools. I tried MIT implementation and got a bit lost too, but I'd like to recommend a book which is a great source of knowledge about programming in general and uses scheme for illustrating ideas. If You din't come across this one yet, You have to check SICP
If Java environment is already comfortable for you, then probably the best way is to use Scheme implementations that run on top of JVM. For educational purposes SISC is more than enough:
http://sisc-scheme.org/
Alternatively, you could use Kawa or Bigloo.
If you're up to learning functional ways, and not necessarily bound to Scheme, then probably Clojure would be a right choice.
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I am doing my dissertation project on NP-Hard Problems: I am going to implement various algorithms for problems such as the partition, the subset sum, the knapsack, etc and then compare the results, the running time, etc. Also, I am going to see what happens with the algorithms when you modify the problem (how does the algorithm behave on the reduced problem, etc).
Now I picked this topic as my project because I am interested in theoretical computer science but I am also not sure if I want to go on as an academic/researcher or join a company/startup and this project has both a theoretical and a practical (actual coding) side.
My question is, which programming language should I use? Should I stick to what I feel more familiar with (Java and maybe Python), or should I go with the web languages (HTML, CSS, PHP, RoR, etc), having in mind that web development skills are on high demand nowadays?
EDIT: HTML and CSS would be obviously used just for the UI.
I want my project to be something that will impress in an interview (for either a job or a masters course) and I am not confident that "yet another project in Java" can do that. I understand that as long as the work on it is good and the result is satisfactory I should be ok but if, let's say, using Ruby can give me some points I am totally going with that. In the same time, I understand that deciding which language to use is part of the project so I am not willing to complicate things just to try and look cool.
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: In case this changes any of the answers, this is a undergrad. dissertation project, not a PhD one.
First of all this is a subjective question, not perfectly suitable for SO, but we forgive you :)
Contrary to popular opinion here (looking at the previous answers), if you're trying to solve NP-Hard problems, I would definitely not write the programs in C or C++. Mainly because dynamic programming methods tend to look like absolute dog poop when written in low-level languages. For example, here's someone's dynamic programming solution to the knapsack problem: http://www.joshuarobinson.net/docs/knapsack.html.
It's well-written and well-formed, but barely readable simply due to the sheer amount of malloc, memcpy, and free you need to do. Go with Java or Python, no question about it. You want people to actually read (and maybe even enjoy?) your dissertation, I would assume.
Don't write it in PHP or Ruby because those languages aren't particularly applicable to computer science theory. With that said, if you're applying for a web-dev job and you're trying to impress your future employees with a knapsack problem or dynamic programming NP-Hard solvers, it's like shooting a sparrow with a cannonball.
If your project's subject is impressive, no one will care what language it's in. Do it in the language you feel is appropriate for the task. Knowing how to make the appropriate language choice and defending that choice should be more impressive than "OMG I used RoR XSL ActionScript CSS!!!"
Also, how long do anticipate this project will take? If you go with a language that's flashy and trendy today, do you know it will still be cool and popular when this project wraps up? Just saying in another way, popularity is not the reason to choose the language for something like this.
if you can invest effort and time, then i recommend c/c++. it will be an impressive add-on skill.
My language of preference would be Python. You could use Django and, in my opinion, it would be very applicable to things that are being done in the industry (especially with startups). Plus, you can't beat Python when it comes to readability and speed of development.
I would have thought that Python would be doing too much clever stuff under the hood to really be able to measure relative performance accurately.
Wouldn't it be better to use a lower-level language like C? Employers would respect you more for that than using something because it's "cool".
The languages you know look fine to me. The old saw is that a CS PhD makes you unemployable anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it. :-)
The other ones you mentioned are mostly specialized web presentation languages. I'm not real sure how one even goes about implementing the knapsack problem using CSS...
Well, as much as this might look fine on the web page, it seems to me that Java would do a better job doing what you need.
PHP, HTML and CSS knowledge is good for job finding, but not applicable very much on the subject you picked.
Also, I noticed a bunch of answers, so I guess this is a question very much related to personal taste and opinion. Hm... You asked for it, anyways ;)
Since you're already familiar with Python, I'd recommend using it. You can use the popular scipy and numpy libraries for your project. You'll probably find something of use in them.
That would be the core, or backend part of your project. When this part is finished, you should think about polish and presentation. You don't want to have an impressive looking presentation with wrong calculations.
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As many other people interested in learning Lisp, I feel the resources available are not the best for beginners and eventually prevent many new people from learning it. Do you feel it could be created some sort of community, with a website, forum or something, that provides good (as in quality) resources/tutorials, for Lisp users, possibly translated to several idioms? That way beginners that don't have the necessary skills for writing tutorials could help translating them. Is it a bad idea or is it something that could be accomplished? Give me some feedback or flame me :D
There are two popular dialects of Lisp - Common Lisp and Scheme. Both have excellent books/tutorials and implementations available online for free. Beginners can start with Scheme which is simpler. Some resources for learning Scheme:
Free Books:
Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum days. (pdf)
The Scheme Programming Language.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
How To Design Programs
Online communities/resources:
The latest Scheme standard.
Scheme Cookbook.
Scheme Requests for Implementation
Scheme Related Research
http://www.schemers.org/
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/scheme/
A Scheme implementation suitable for beginners is PLT Scheme.
Free Books to learn Common Lisp:
Practical Common Lisp
On Lisp
Common Lisp HyperSpec (Reference)
Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
Online communities/resources for Common Lisp:
The Common Lisp Cookbook
http://common-lisp.net/
CLiki
The Common Lisp Directory
Popular Common Lisp implementations: SBCL, CLISP, Clozure CL, Allegro CL
Lisp has been around for a long time, there are many (fragmented) communities. There's really no way to "create" a common community, especially from the outside.
Paul Graham would be a likely (IMNO, N=naive) person to potentially unite a large lisp community, given his popularity among younger programmers, as well as his background in lisp (writing On Lisp). However, he has chosen to create a yet another dialect of lisp, Arc.
Many folks have written about the fragmentation of the Lisp community, or Lisp's inability to "catch on". Some examples: here, here, here, and here. So, while your idea is a good one, it is probably fruitless.
That being said, don't let me stop you from rising up and being such a uniting figure in the Lisp community.
As far as existing tutorials, the Emacs Wiki is a good starting place for learning Emacs Lisp. And for an introduction to Scheme - as well as a good introduction to programming in general, there's the classic Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
I find those two resources to be good starting points for learning Emacs Lisp and Scheme. I haven't played with Arc, but presumably there would be some good tutorials on learning Arc - because it is designed in part to be a good language for creating basic web apps.
Here's a forum: Lisp Forum, and here's a community: Planet Lisp
Here's a pretty decent post you might find helpful, How to Learn Lisp.
One of the strengths of Lisp is that being a mature language there are a number of really great books on the subject.
Actually, there are quite a few free CL books available online:
"Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation" covers the basics, but might be too gentle, depending on your level.
"Successful Lisp" is quite comprehensive, and IMHO the best online resource for learning CL, if you have already programmed a little in another language.
"Practical Common Lisp" aims to reach experienced programmers and surely is one of the best Lisp books available -- one of the few which explicitly try to explain "real world usage".
"On Lisp" is an interesting read for advanced CL programmers, mostly covering macros.
Besides those, there is the indispensable Hyperspec, a htmlized version of the standard, and CLtL2, which is was the pre-ANSI de facto standard (still valuable, since many people find it more accessible than the Hyperspec. At least it sometimes shows things from another perspective).
Finally, there is the Lisp Forum and c.l.lisp. Though there is much noise on c.l.l., you can get very insightful answers there and learn from the masters. As a newbie, one should try to post thoughtful questions on c.l.l., and have a thick skin.
Download, install, run http://download.plt-scheme.org/drscheme/.
Read its "Guide".
My thoughts, as a newcommer to lisp, would be to recommend Clojure (I have over the past six months played with Scheme and Emacs Lisp). I have only been playing with Clojure over the past couple of days.
Running on the JVM, means that most people allready have most of the Clojure enviroment, they only need to .jar files and a plugin for their editor or IDE (Java ones anyway) of choice. So getting running is easier then Scheme or CL in terms of choice.
Most new programmers are at the very least familar with Java, which Clojure of course utilizes pretty well, meaning that while they are learning they can focus on lisp, and a bit less on libraries. There is a lot of concepts that they are much better off focusing on.
On the downside, Java does have a lot of stigma against it. But Clojure has a lot going for it, and I believe a good future ahead, and the Programming Clojure is imho, very accessible, and both Joy of Clojure and Clojure in Action are comming some time soon.
Another great book to learn scheme and it's programming style, even more when you came from OO world it's better to start from scratch.
How to design programs
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If I want to learn Clojure, should I start by learning Scheme or Common Lisp?
Or is Clojure different enough from both of these, that I should just start learning Clojure by itself?
It would be to your benefit to learn all three, if only so you can pick which one is best for your needs. All three have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Clojure is vaguely like Scheme in that it's a mostly-functional language and is a Lisp1. Clojure also borrows things from Common Lisp, like multimethods and macros, and people are always porting cool Common Lisp things to Clojure as libraries. The creator of Clojure was himself a Common Lisp hacker before writing Clojure. Clojure borrows a lot of terminology and conventions from Scheme and CL both (but also has its own flavors in many areas).
There is not a lot of literature for Clojure right now, it being such a new language (there is only one Clojure book so far). But there are loads of good Scheme-oriented books, like SICP and The Little Schemer / The Seasoned Schemer. There are also good CL books, like PCL, and many others.
Lisps also have a lot of history and it is to your benefit to understand the history, to see where and why Clojure deviates from it if nothing else.
I'd recommend starting with Scheme because it's the simplest language of the three and therefore easiest to learn. Then dabble in CL and Clojure until you have a handle on things, then go full-steam in whichever of the two you gravitate toward.
For your purposes I think you are safe to just start learning Clojure. The differences between Lisp and Scheme (and Clojure itself for that matter) shouldn't be a concern especially if you are just starting to learn.
My first Lisp learning experience was with Scheme, I've never touched Common Lisp (felt it was too complex), and am now starting on Clojure.
I used Dorai Sitaram's "Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days" to learn Scheme and got fairly far though I never really found myself wanting to use Scheme in real projects.
Clojure, because it purportedly gives nice, clean access to the huge universe of J2SE/J2EE libraries, on the other hand, encourages me to relearn this Lisp dialect because it may finally be of practical use.
As for which one to start with, I would say Scheme is simpler and so might be more appropriate to start with. On the other hand, if you have good Java and Python knowledge, you might not mind diving straight into Clojure because, unlike Scheme, it contains elements of these other two languages (e.g. data structures reminiscent of Python and JVM/Java API centric tutorials) and the familiar terrain might help.
Since I did come from all three (Java, Python, Scheme), I find myself in a good position to appreciate just what Clojure brings to the table that is different from Scheme. I'm no experienced Schemer, but I'd say that if you immediately start with Clojure, you will still get the general Lisp experience, so you definitely won't be missing that by forgoing Scheme.
It depends on whether you want to focus on learning or playing. If you really want to study Lisp, Scheme is a good place to start. If you'd rather play as you're learning Clojure is a better fit.
Eventually I think Clojure might be a better learning language. It's support for concurrency is really eye-opening. Few languages make it so simple for a beginner to write concurrent programs.
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I have been programming in Python, PHP, Java and C for a couple or years now, and I just finished reading Hackers and Painters, so I would love to give LISP a try!
I understand its totally diferent from what i know and that it won't be easy. Also I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) there's way less community and development around LISP. So my question is: what's the best way to learn LISP?
I wouldn't mind buying books or investing some time. I just don't want it to be wasted.
The "final" idea would be to use LISP for web development, and I know that's not so common so... I know it's good to plan my learning before picking the first book or tutorial and spending lots of time on something that may not be the best way!
Thank you all for your answers!
edit: I read Practical Common Lisp and was: ... long, hard, interesting and definitely got me rolling in Lisp, after that i read the little schemer, and it was short, fun and very very good for my overall programming. So my recommendation would be to read first the little schemer, then (its a couple of hours and its worth it) if you decide lisp(or scheme or whatever dialect) is not what you where looking for, you will still have a very fun new way of thinking about recursion!
Try reading Practical Common Lisp, by Peter Seibel.
My personal favorite is Abelson & Sussman Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
It uses Scheme, which is a nice and clean dialect of Lisp.
If you like a more practical approach maybe you should pick some Lisp framework for web design
(I have no idea if such a beast exists) and jump right in.
You might want to start with The Little Schemer as a warm-up. It's not a practical book about writing production Lisp programs, but it's a great book for learning how to think in Lisp.
MIT has made available an entire LISP course in DIVX and MPEG format. I highly recommend it.
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/
There is now a book out called 'Land of LISP' that teaches LISP programming through writing 80's style text games. I'm reading it now, and it's very well written and doesn't take itself too seriously, which I like.
There are several options here. First of all, Scheme and Common Lisp are fairly different in rather deep ways (like scoping); you should pick one to start with and stick with it for a while. I'm a Common Lisp fan, but that may be one of those vi-vs-EMACS religious questions.
For Scheme, go for Kent Dybvig's Scheme Programming Language, followed by SICP.
For Common Lisp, as well as Practical Common Lisp, I'd recommend David Lamkins's Successful Lisp. Successful Lisp is also available online for free.
After than, look at Lisp in Small Pieces by Queinnec, and Norvig's Lisp in AI book.
Marty Hall has a nice list at Johns Hopkins.
Updated: I don't mean stick to it forever, just that trying to learn both at once would be confusing.
Pick up The Land of Lisp by Conrad Barski. It is a fun filled introduction to Lisp programming using cartoons and games.
I'd recommend Project Euler as an excellent source of small bite-sized problems you can use to teach yourself any new programming language.
Ansi Common Lisp by Paul Graham is a good book.
I think it might be out of print, so your best bet to get it via Amazon.
I got the book for a "Natural Language Processing" class I took my sophomore year in college.
We had to write the programing projects in LISP, and so I needed to learn Lisp quickly.
The book helped me quite a bit.
Once I had a problem. I didn't know lisp. So I decided to download LISP in a box.
Then I found myself with an Emacs install without any help or documentation.
Then I had two problems.
For serious learners, I'd recommend PAIP from Norvig. It is an excellent resource to learn both Lisp and AI.
Berkeley offers CS61a in podcast format. This is an intro to CS class based around SICP. It's a more modern version than the 1982 videos MIT has available.
I'm working my way through Lisp right now and have come across "the book" to learn Lisp. It was suggested by Rainer Joswig
The book is called Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation and can be downloaded as a PDF. The author begins with a UML like approach to Lisp in the first chapter and gradually introduces more and more Lisp syntax.
I've also looked at practical lisp and I think that the author glosses over a lot of required information, even for a seasoned programmer. This book doesn't seem to do that (I'm not completely finished, but have found it useful enough to suggest).
one more thing, you'll need an environment to work in. I've found Lisp in a Box to work well. It runs on Windows and Linux and uses eMacs.
I've got attracted to LISP by its JVM dialect - Clojure. Clojure is sort of great LISP, since
it has "simplified syntax", that is less parathensis are required, there is cleverly design set of collections available
it is JVM based, so there is stable, performant runtime underneath, in addition whole Java ecosystem (libraries, e.g. database drivers, build tools, IDEs) is within our reach
Noir is a good web framework, apps can be deployed on Java web and applications servers
In other words, Clojure can be used in production right here, right now.
When it comes to resources, there are at least 4 books and planty online resources:
Books: "The joy of Clojure" - very insightful but can be difficult, so it's best read together with "Programming Clojure".
Online tutorials: Mark Volkmann tutorial is great
see also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/599519/which-tutorial-on-clojure-is-best
4Clojure website contains a number of simple programming tasks, so one can play with Clojure and see other people solutions
I enjoyed reading Practical Common LISP and ANSI Common LISP.
On LISP looks interesting, but at $190 seems a little expensive for a book.
For web development you might want to have a look at hunchentoot, a web server written in common lisp.
I found working through the exercises in "The Little Schemer" really helped hone the recursive, pattern-matching side of my thinking and made working in XSLT considerably easier.
I recommend Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation or Practical Common Lisp first, based on your programming experiences. For practicing, I use Allegro CL 8.2 Free Express Edition in Windows. It turns practicing into a lot of fun.
Sort of a difficult question to answer ... I think it all depends on your learning style.
I learned LISP in my A.I. and Expert Systems classes in college, but that's how I learn ... I'm not a great book learner, I prefer to have someone explain it to me in a class setting.
LISP is definitely a unique language and it requires a new train of thought if you're used to conventional C, Java, PHP programming.
Best of luck to you !
I found reading the book SICP really helped me learn. I used Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL) and had good success with it.
Good luck
I don't know that there's anything special about Lisp that makes it different from learning any other language. You just need to start using it and trying out its features.
One option might be to try a simple project.
Another option, that's specific for Lisp, would be to write an Emacs extension that assists you in your regular work.
Read these books in order: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham and then move onto Practical Common Lisp. Or skip ACL and use it as a reference while working your way through PCL.
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I am a bioinformatics student and am in the process of learning perl. I don't have a strong programming background but would like for that to change.
Right now I am in the process of reading/following and coding from this book
I want to know is this the best way to go about learning perl? Should I be experimenting with regular expressions more? Should I keep trying writing sample perl scripts?
Related: what are good books for learning perl
The definitive learning Perl book is aptly called "Learning Perl". Get it.
I cannot recommend writing sample scripts. Try to write something that you need. It doesn't have to be a big endeavor; everyone needs a little tool now and then. Writing sample scripts is boring; always was, always will be.
This seems like a potential duplicate as here are some related questions:
What are the best resources to starting learning Perl?
What’s the best online source to learn Perl?
Like most other answers on this post I can't disagree with the choice of "Learning Perl" as your first Perl text. Keep a copy of the perldoc documentation available for quick reference(I prefer using the html/pdf format which is available as a download from the main page).
In order to keep things from getting boring, especially in the initial stages I started converting my shell scripts to Perl, hacking away at it until I had three or more different versions of the same program with decreasing file size(not great for maintenance though). But then you know what they say - TMTOWTDI. Now I don't bother with shell scripts any more, writing it in Perl results in smaller turnaround times and the code can be easily reused and enhanced.
Once you are familiar with the more advanced concepts and are approaching a level of comfortability with using it for your day-to-day work or just simple one-liners you might want to have a look at Mark Jason Dominus' Higher-Order Perl which, according to me, takes the language and the reader's understanding of it to an entirely new level. The chapter on "Recursion and Callbacks" was a real eye-opener and changed my style completely from that of writing C-programs in Perl to actually writing "Perl" programs in Perl.
I use the online book "Learning Perl the Hard Way" to teach my coworkers about Perl.
Don't be intimidated by the title, it's just that it's directed at programmers who are already fluent in another language and therefore it doesn't focus on the programming part, but mostly on the Perl part, so it may apply better to your case (or not).
You really can't go wrong with the Lama book
Learning Perl
There's quite a library of O'Reilly books on Perl. Programming Perl is also excellent and probably worth having to complement the Lama book - I have both on my shelves and although I haven't needed to code in Perl for quite some time I found these books together a solid enough combination. The Perl Cookbook came in useful too (yes, this is one of those areas that O'Reilly has pretty much sew up :-).
As to practical exercises, Perl does have something of a reputation as a 'Write Only' language, so look for clear examples and if you are confused by anything don't necessarily assume that the problem is you - there's always more than one way to do it.
You also might want to look for examples of good code to study.
My experience is that there's nothing better for learning than doing. But you need someone to provide feedback, especially when you hit roadblocks that you can't get past. Stackoverflow is good for that, but, IME, Perlmonks is better in that there is a chatterbox for immediate feedback, as well as their question-and-answer posts for longer questions, combined with a more specialised environment. (And Larry Wall has been rumoured to hang out there, too, as well as a number of the authors of the above-referred-to books.)
Learn by doing. Get the books mentioned by others, but the real way to learn is to start a simple project. Mine was a Gtk based SQL editor. If you run into problems ask questions here and on the Perl Beginners list.
The choice of book is can be vary from person to person. So, as bioinformatics student who use perl, don't get any book that called "(X Programming language) for bioinformatics". Usually this kind of book is either.
They only give very basic of that programming language. You gonna to miss all the power from that language.
Wasting its space on how to use API, which you can find information easily via google.