Lisp Is Very Retro

date: 2021-03-02

Is LISP the most Retro language?

I'm not sure if it is the most retro programing language. Fortran is older than Lisp by a year. But retro isn't a good enough reason to learn a language. It has to be useful (and fun) now.

For me, learning to program has been a desire since I was in my teenage years. I can program now, but I still have a lot to learn. Just after college, in 2004, I read Paul Graham's book Hackers and Painters. That book introduced me to Lisp and I've wanted to program in it since then. I tried a couple times, but gave up. Now's the time to tackle it again.

I've chosen Common Lisp and bought a book. My son has taken to the book and already made significant progress. He said of the book: "This book is really really good!". Maybe he can be my tutor.

Lisp is a good choice for me, both in that learning to use it will accomplish one of my longstanding goals and that I think it is a good match for the kind of retro and Linux type of things that I am interested in.

To install Steel Bank Common Lisp on a debian based system:

apt install sbcl

The version isn't the most recent, but that's an easy way to get it installed. Downloading the latest version from the Steel Bank Common Lisp website and installing that isn't difficult either.

I look forward to writing more code and writing about my experience learning and using the Lisp programming lanuage.

tags: #lisp #programming