The primary difference is that quote prevents evaluation of the elements, whereas list does not: user=> ‘(1 2 (+ 1 2)) (1 2 (+ 1 2)) user=> (list 1 2 (+ 1 2)) (1 2 3) For this reason (among others), it is idiomatic clojure to use a vector when describing a literal collection: user=> … Read more
In Common Lisp, ‘1 is shorthand for (QUOTE 1). When evaluated, (QUOTE something) returns the something part, unevaluated. However, there is no difference between 1 evaluated and 1 unevaluated. So there is a difference to the reader: ‘1 reads as (QUOTE 1) and 1 reads as 1. But there is no difference when evaluted.
The Lisp dialect Clojure seems to be growing in popularity – you might ask out at http://clojure.org/ in one of the forums to see what real-world apps people are building with it.
See Common Lisp Implementations: A Survey by Daniel Weinreb.
Use Scheme. It is one of the simplest and easiest languages in existence, and you will spend very little time learning enough of it to understand SICP. Once you understand SICP, you will see how the concepts apply in any language.
These are pretty tricky constructs, and it’s tough to give clear explanations; they aren’t as straightforward as Lisp macros (or, for that matter, the relationship between Lisp’s QUOTE and EVAL). However, there’s a good, lengthy discussion available in the form of notes from Robby Villegas’s 1999 talk “Unevaluated Expressions” on Wolfram’s website. Defer is omitted … Read more
Executables SBCL can save executable images, as Greg Harman mentions (see the :EXECUTABLE keyword): http://www.sbcl.org/manual/index.html#Saving-a-Core-Image Scripts Lisp files can be executed as scripts, see: http://www.sbcl.org/manual/#Shebang-Scripts Command Line Options SBCL has command line options to evaluate/load lisp code on start: http://www.sbcl.org/manual/#Command-Line-Options SLIME SLIME is an Emacs interface for Common Lisp. One can use SBCL via SLIME … Read more
The great thing about clojure is you can attach the reporting to the data itself instead of the code that does the computing. This allows you to separate these logically distinct parts. Here is a chunk from my misc.clj that I find I use in just about every project: (defn seq-counter “calls callback after every … Read more
The following may prove useful: The University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group OpenHoldem Poker Hand Recognition, Comparison, Enumeration, and Evaluation The Theory of Poker The Mathematics of Poker SpecialKPokerEval
Forget about call/cc for a moment. Every expression/statement, in any programming language, has a continuation – which is, what you do with the result. In C, for example, x = (1 + (2 * 3)); printf (“Done”); has the continuation of the math assignment being printf(…); the continuation of (2 * 3) is ‘add 1; … Read more