Show HN: I wrote a technical history book on Lisp

The book page links to a blog post that explains how I got about it (and has a link to sample content), but the TL&DR is that I could not find a lot of books that were on "our" history _and_ were larded with technical details. So I set about writing one, and some five years later I'm happy to share the result. I think it's one of the few "computer history" books that has tons of code, but correct me if I'm wrong (I wrote this both to tell a story and to learn :-)).

My favorite languages are Smalltalk and Lisp, but as an Emacs user, I've been using the latter for much longer and for my current projects, Common Lisp is a better fit, so I call myself "a Lisp-er" these days. If people like what I did, I do have plans to write some more (but probably only after I retire, writing next to a full-time job is heard). Maybe on Smalltalk, maybe on computer networks - two topics close to my heart.

And a shout-out to Dick Gabriel, he contributed some great personal memories about the man who started it all, John McCarthy.

▲

kamma4434 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I skimmed the index but… no Clojure? My impression is that it is by far the most used current Lisp. This said, I’d love to read the book - definitely interesting.

▲

emigre 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I will take a look, it looks really interesting. Thanks for the effort. I'm also interested in Lisp.

I think you might like this: 'The evolution of Lisp' by Guy L. Steele and Richard P. Gabriel. https://doi.org/10.1145/234286.1057818

▲

emigre 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have some feedbak, nothing major, but I would say that a professional designer could help you improve the book cover. Right now somebody with professional experience in graphic design --or a good eye for design-- can probably see details in it that could be improved. It's a pity if you have worked on this for five years, not to present it in the best possible way.

	▲	DerArzt 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's more likely that they focused on the book's content rather than the cover art for 5 years

▲

wduquette an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Sounds very cool. I've dabbled with Lisp on and off since the mid-80's, starting with a text adventure in LISP-80 on a Kaypro 4, and though I've never written a serious project in Lisp I've learned a great deal from it. (Wrote a lot of TCL code once upon a time; I've always thought of TCL as a Lisp in which you do a lot of things backwards.)