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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.
Related
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I wish to learn Lisp as I am going towards Artificial Intelligence (AI). Can somebody share some good book names of tutorials which covers good amount of Lisp details?
Just googling it, but didn't find anything good which covers the language in detail.
Also, which software is required for programming (like for .NET languages we usually use Visual Studio to do programming)?
Thanks in advance.
Thank you all for the helpful responses... :)
Paradigms of AI
Really good for learning Lisp, but especially if you're aiming for AI. It covers a lot of the techniques that you'll need and shows how to use them.
In your googling did you see Practical Common Lisp? It's a great starting point.
One caveat about PCL is that it starts out with the most obsolete kinds of constructs, explaining how to create global variables, using property-lists, etc., I was surprised by how it began with all this really gnarly old stuff that had nothing to do with what I wanted to learn. Eventually it does get around to very lucid explanations of macros and multimethods and stuff, so it does get better if you stick with it. But if you want to get into Lisp but skip the nasty old cruft, my advice is go straight to learning Clojure, which is a very recent Lisp built with the idea of supporting modern programmers' needs.
Introductory resources for Clojure:
1) Rich Hickey's presentation "Clojure for Java Programmers", which gives a good overall idea of what Clojure is about.
2) Stuart Halloway's Programming Clojure, which is a good introduction to the language.
3) Fogus and Houser's Joy of Clojure covers more advanced material you'd otherwise have to find by rummaging through a lot of books on Common Lisp and Scheme and sorting out which bits are relevant and which are outdated.
As for software Lisp people (including those using Clojure) tend to use Emacs a lot. However, you can use vi (there's a paren-matching option that comes in handy) and Eclipse has plugins you can use (Cusp for Common Lisp, Counterclockwise for Clojure).
ANSI Common Lisp, Paul Graham is the bible of Lisp, my opinion.
LispWorks is the most commonly used (GUI) IDE (like Visual Studio) to
develop, test, debug, compile your Lisp projects. It is a commercial
product but for individual usage is for free on Linux, Windows and
even Mac OS X. I prefer to use Emacs (nox version) & CLisp on my
Ubuntu OS. I love my console. 8-)
Any text editor will do the job of editing source code--even Windows' Notepad. However, given that Lisp code will have nested parentheses, you will likely want an editor which will help you match open and close parentheses, such as Notepad++ (or if you're a little more Unix-centric, emacs or vim).
I've never gotten more serious about Lisp programming to go beyond using GNU clisp or the Lisp interpreter in emacs for small projects, so I can't really recommend anything more sophisticated. However, this list of Lisp References looks like a good starting point for potential reading material.
The classic text for AI & Lisp is the Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (PAIP).
On Lisp is a pretty good text as well.
I use emacs + Slime for my Common Lisp work; it's not the most modern, but works quite well. I have never yet felt the need for a commercial Lisp IDE. Others may disagree.
And if you are interested in learning how to program games with Lisp, you can also check Land of Lisp
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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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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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I know there are a few different dialects of Lisp. Having decided that learning Lisp would be a new intellectual experience, I would like to know which Lisp dialect to learn, and why.
Is there one which is more popular than the others? Is any one of them more "complete", as in, better documented and supported? What are the pros and cons of this dialect?
You want to look for a balance between simplicity and cleanliness, attractive features, and a platform that will allow you to write interesting and useful software (to yourself) as well as serve as a learning tool. (This last will keep you going and learning for a lot longer.) Here are some possibilities:
Scheme. Probably the cleanest of all dialects. This is no doubt why The Little Schemer was translated from LISP into Scheme. The fifth Scheme standard specification, R5RS, is a wonderful education in and of itself; it may be the nicest language and library specification I've ever read, as well as the shortest that's reasonably comprehensive. The PLT Scheme (now Racket) platform includes a fairly decent interpreter and compiler, is good for scripting, and also has some visual tools that make it excellent for learning.
Common Lisp. Probably the most portable and comprehensive variant, this is most likely what you want if you want to be writing things such as commercial software. The standard defines extensive libraries, and many more are available beyond that, it has CLOS, which will probably teach you more about OO than any OO language could, and some of the compilers are very good. Disadvantages include some warts that Scheme doesn't have (such as having a separate namespace for variables that refer to functions), not being as clean and simple (as is the case with anything that has had to have the extensions and make the compromises necessary for large applications in the real world), not having hygienic macros, and emphasizing recursion much less than Scheme.
Clojure. This runs on the JVM, which may give it a leg up right there for Java developers. It's got a few warts (e.g., you must explicitly ask for tail call optimization, though this may change one day if TCO is added to the JVM). The macros, while not hygienic, do have some features to help you avoid variable capture, so you can capture variables if you really want to, while running less risk of accidentally doing so than in CL. You've got easy access to all the Java libraries; that's probably a good thing for "real world" code, and fairly pointless in terms of learning. It's got a set of libraries for persistent data structures and support for STM, which make it very interesting from a concurrent point of view; this makes it probably your best bet if you're interested in learning more about new methods of dealing with concurrent and parallel programming. It appears as if Clojure is as usable for large, production applications as Java, in the sense that it's going to have the ability to do the "ugly stuff" you do in production apps that you'd rather not do and don't do when you're learning.
Emacs Lisp. In terms of a LISP, this is not one of the better examples out there. One of its biggest faults is dynamic scoping, but there are many others. However, if you're an Emacs user, this may be the most powerful tool you can learn to improve your use of the editor. How much you'd really learn from learning Emacs Lisp, beyond how to extend Emacs, is for me an open question however; I don't know how often interesting techniques such as high-order functions are really used in Emacs Lisp.
2018 Update
It's been almost a decade since I wrote this post and the Lisp family of languages now appears to be gaining significant traction in the general programmer consciousness. Much of this appears to be related to Clojure which has not only become a properly separate dialect of Lisp in its own right, introducing many of its own good ideas, but also now has a near-identical version targeting JavaScript and has inspired many other Lisps targeting other platforms. For example, Hy targets the CPython AST and bytecode, aiming first for interoperability with Python, but using Clojure ideas "when in doubt." (Though from the latest commits, the latter may be changing a bit.)
The big change this brings in your decision-making process is that you should also be looking at whatever Lisps or Lisp-like languages are available for and interoperate with languages or platforms you already use, be it Perl, Ruby, Erlang, Go or even C++ on microcontrollers.
I would say Scheme, solely because of the Little Schemer, which is one of the most mind-blowingly fun yet extremely hard books I've ever tried to read.
I can recommend Common Lisp on SBCL. This combination is fast, powerful, mature and well-documented.
Also Clojure is a gaining a lot of mindshare these days, and for good reason. Great data structures, profoundly good concurrency support (puts Scheme and CL to shame in this regard), and a great community. It's also relatively simple, CL is as at least as complicated as C++.
This isn't to say I don't enjoy CL or Scheme. I learned Scheme with SICP. And CL brought me to Clojure. It all depends on your goals I suppose. If you want to learn a Lisp that is immensely practical go for Clojure. Otherwise CL or Scheme are both great.
I learned Scheme in school. It was a great learning experience and I will never forget the fundamentals of functional programming. It probably doesn't matter which version of LISP you pick up, as long as you understand the core of its usefulness - stateless lambda calculus.
Here's an interesting article on Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python in its introductory programming course.
I prefer CL, since I like object-oriented programming, and CLOS is the nicest object system around.
I would say all of them, at least at first. Eventually you will probably develop a preference for Scheme or Common Lisp, but they both have enough differences that it's best to get a handle on everything that's out there.
Scheme has continuations for example, and it's good to learn about those in Scheme, even though they can be implemented in Common Lisp.
Learning the difference between lexical and dynamic scope is important, and if you learn both Common Lisp and elisp you'll come across the implications of both.
LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang) would be nice. You can have the lisp syntax on top of the Erlang VM.
Was a kind of "loaded" question to begin with but OP probably didn't know about it. Generally, Common and Scheme lispers are like PC and Apple computer "people", they don't mix. Which one is best is probably not as relevant as which one "works" for you. Really, there is not that much difference. Likely a preference for one over the other maybe influenced by which one you learn first. (To me, an empty list should be "nothing", known in CL as NIL, and that makes me a Common Lisper.) I like the integration of SBCL with Slime using EMACS, but SBCL is not for everyone. For one thing, SBCL is very strict. If you just want to "have fun" the GNU clisp is easy and available for virtually every platform.
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I'm working on a toolkit (sort of a live-CD Lisp-in-a-Box) for people new to Common Lisp, and I want to make sure it is broadly satisfying. What is attractive to you about Lisp? What do/did/would you need to get you started and keep you interested?
What I have so far: SBCL 10.22, Emacs 22.3, SLIME, and LTK bundled together and configured on a Linux live-CD that boots entirely to RAM.
I've now released the result of this; it is available at the Thnake website.
I would include at least cl-ppcre, clx, Hunchentoot, and Weblocks.
I guess that you would have to negotiate with the respective authors, but including "On Lisp", "Practical Common Lisp", and "Successful Lisp" would be a great asset for the CD.
What would be really nice is to use stumpwm as the window manager on your live CD.
Emacs almost prevented me from learning Common Lisp. It took a lot of effort to slog through it. Emacs and SLIME are too much for a beginner and will never be broadly satisfying to beginners. If I want to learn a new programming language, I want everything else to stay out of my way while I learn it. The task of learning Lisp is hard enough without added technicalities and complications of setting up an environment. Isolate the variable.
Set up SBCL with rlwrap or an equivalent. rlwrap supports very basic paren matching and history searching and can even do tab-completion. Not as fancy as SLIME but a beginner doesn't need SLIME. A beginner needs to be able to run hello-world without spending an hour fighting Emacs. Provide Emacs/SLIME as an option but don't require it.
My suggestion is to include an HTTP server like Hunchentoot and a popular web framework. I suspect that most people that want to learn Lisp these days do so because of reading Paul Graham, and wanting to mimic his success at building Viaweb, so being able to easily create and modify powerful web applications would be a strong selling point for your live CD.
Include Emacs, of course, but you might want to have something gentler.
The Lisp environment I found easiest to slip into was Macintosh Common Lisp, with the FRED editor (Fred Resembles Emacs Deliberately). Digitool didn't successfully make it into the current era of Macs, but they open-sourced a lot of their stuff as they folded. Try www.clozure.com or search for "openmcl" on Google.
There was a project to get the Fred environment running on Openmcl, but I don't know the status offhand (I haven't done anything with Lisp in a long time, and haven't been paying attention on the mailing lists).
So, my recommendations:
Ask Paul Graham if you can include "On Lisp". Since he's giving away a download for free, the odds are good that he'll give permission. (His other excellent Lisp book, "ANSI Common Lisp", is apparently still selling, so it's unlikely he'll give you permission there.)
At least check out the MCL stuff to see if there's anything you can find to make it easier. Emacs is a great Lisp environment, but it's a bit intimidating for the beginner.
I haven't looked at the SBCL documentation lately. Is it fairly readable and beginner-friendly? Perhaps somebody could write up some quick instructions on how to get going and how to debug. Emphasize mouse use at first, even if using Emacs.
What would really get me interested in Common Lisp is a modern set of libraries at the level of .net or Java, as well as some really good documentation that isn't gnarly.
In terms of software, a nice gui editor along the lines of notepad++ or jEdit would be good. Emacs/vi & text-based editors always seems quaint and antiquated for serious development.
Reading Paul Graham makes me want to learn Common Lisp. But if I actually sit down to try learning it, the urge subsides.
Everything in clbuild (http://common-lisp.net/project/clbuild) should be a good candidate to be included. Incidentally, all packages in your list except Emacs are also managed by clbuild. I think it'd be good if the collection of projects in clbuild could gather some momentum towards standard-common-lisp-library-hood.
This does:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html
Of course I'd also like to learn more Python 3.0, erlang, and F#. I believe that functional languages (not to say that Python is a functional language) provide just a different perspective. The more perspective you have the better solutions you can architect. It is all about using the right tools for the job too, but if you don't at least have familiarity with something you might never think to solve a problem with a particular tool. I guess it goes back to the old saying that to a carpenter everything looks like a nail. I do not want to be hammering C# into everything when there are better solutions available. Also, times change and fads do with them.
Emacs does have a bit of a learning curve, but it is great for serious development -- no pesky mouse-driven gui bling in the way of the (text-based) code.
Out-of-the-box CUA-mode is enabled these days (so C-x, C-c, C-v works "standard"), and there is a menu with file-operations like save, etc, so it shouldn't that hard of a slog, if it's all pre-packaged. But pre-configuring the .emacs file to ensure that CUA mode is enabled, SLIME doesn't have to be configured by the user etc. is a must -- plus perhpas more documentation within for the user for .emacs configs - links to EmacsWiki, etc. (hrm, if this is on a CD, it's unlikely that the user would be configuring it themselves, isn't it....)
I have some interest in learning Lisp, but I don't 'like' most of the resources available. How about extending this project to the creation of some sort of a "community" responsible for providing tutorials or something, in order to make Common Lisp more popular and easier to learn? Bad/weird/useless idea?
I think the idea of including tutorials is an excellent one.
In addition to the ones already stated, there is both the easiest book for newbies on lisp (A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation) and several excellent websites hiding out there on the web that people should know about. Here they are:
A Gentle Introdiction to Symbolic Computation
Learning Lisp
Casting Spels
Learning Lisp Fast
As far as I undertand you are doing Thnake.
Thank you for greate live distro!
I tried it couple of days before and found it rather impressive and interesting.
There are couple of things it obviously lacks, such as LTK since you have already included Common Lisp and Tcl/Tk. And since there is gtk, you can include bindings and documentation for CL and Python.
Also there is a need in Lisp Hyperspec, and preconfiguaration of Slime to use it. (Same for documentation for Python and Tcl) May be it would be better to add emacs-w3m for fast and convenient documentation browsing.
There's always Practical Common Lisp, a book on Common Lisp which is readable in its entirety online. There's also a packaging of Emacs with a CL implementation meant for using along with the book.
You should definitely add Vim too, configured with the RainbowParenthsis plugin.
rlwrap for SBCL is a good idea, and so is (require :sb-aclrepl).
Weblocks should come with cl-prevalence and maybe Elephant/BDB, too.