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3 points by Styx 3372 days ago | link | parent | on: Lisp Beginner

Also, from an outside perspective, I think your idea for a "Arc for Scheme" primer would be a great idea. The Little Schemer is widely recommended, so it could potentially result in more people finding their way into Arc.

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2 points by Styx 3372 days ago | link | parent | on: Lisp Beginner

Hey thanks Akkartik, I'll give it a go.

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2 points by Styx 3372 days ago | link | parent | on: Lisp Beginner

Mostly pg's essays. I'm actually fairly new to programming in general, though I have a ton of interest.

I'm coming from a Ruby background and I was just admitted to a coding bootcamp, for reference.

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2 points by kinnard 3372 days ago | link

I see. Yeah his essays are very seductive. I got pulled in.

Have you read the Roots of Lisp: http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/paulgraham/jmc.ps

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1 point by Styx 3372 days ago | link

Ah, well, I skimmed it yesterday. Which I guess skimming is the last thing to do when it comes to a document of that sort ^.^

Essentially, I want to learn Lisp because the colloquial "they" recommend it to gain a better understanding of programming in general.

I want to learn Arc because it seems to take the lisp philosophy to heart the most out of the lisps.

And generally, I'm the type of person that can withstand some amount of "jumping into the deep end." Although, I may be in a bit too deep this time. Heh.

I'll probably continue to lurk around here until I've got a bit more experience under my belt, and thoughts to contribute.

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2 points by kinnard 3372 days ago | link

It's definitely worth the read. It's the "Foundation" and nothing can beat knowing the axioms cold. That article was my red pill.

Arc isn't exactly living up to the vision: [1] https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/issues/40#issuecomment... [2] http://arclanguage.org/item?id=19492

And the vision is questionable to begin with: http://arclanguage.org/item?id=19554

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2 points by Styx 3372 days ago | link | parent | on: Lisp Beginner

Yeah I figured that would be the deal getting into it, but I'm still willing to learn it. I think the whole philosophy is really neat.

I think what I'm going to try to do is continue to play around with Arc, while also learning on something a bit more established. Maybe Scheme or Clojure.

Thanks for the advice.

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3 points by kinnard 3372 days ago | link

Is there something you have in mind to build?

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3 points by Styx 3372 days ago | link

Well, I was thinking about building a chess engine in it at some point. But then, I intended to read a few books between now and then.

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3 points by kinnard 3372 days ago | link

That would be cool! "Chess engine" means no graphics, right?

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2 points by Styx 3372 days ago | link

Right. I created one in Ruby not too long ago. Then I decided I wanted to see it in the browser, so I used something called Opal to convert my Ruby code to JS. Then I built up the necessary html/css.

It's over at https://rawgit.com/Styx-/personal_website/master/index.html under projects if you want to see it.

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1 point by Styx 3372 days ago | link

Also, how much effort would it take to do something similar in Arc?

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1 point by kinnard 3372 days ago | link

You know . . . I have no idea . . :)

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