[racket] Common Lisp or Racket?

Realm is targeted at readers who have something like a semester or two of programming experience. Ages 16--80 I'd say but exceptions in both directions imaginable. 

The code is idiomatic. 


On Nov 13, 2013, at 8:48 AM, Ben Duan <yfefyf at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering who are the target readers for Realm. Is it written for kids? I have already spent some time in Racket and want to read some idiomatic Racket code. Is it a suitable book?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ben
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:20 AM, Matthias Felleisen <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Lawrence, let me supplement Alex's answer. if you have programmed before, dive right into Realm. If it is your first real adventure in programming, take the time to work through HtDP. -- Matthias
> 
> 
> 
> On Nov 12, 2013, at 12:47 PM, Alexander McLin <alex.mclin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Racket is truely a great and cleaner Lisp. It's carved out its own path that I find quite attractive and am enjoying my forays into Racket.
> >
> > I would recommend you just get started with The Little Schemer to get a taste, move on to How To Design Programs. There is a Coursera course that uses HTDP, although I haven't taken it myself, is probably easier to stick with than going through HTDP on your own. Realm of Racket is a nice book but best read after you've already had some experience with a Lisp dialect.
> >
> > Find or plan a project using Racket as your main coding language to help you use and grow with it. For example I'm using Racket to develop programs for the Coursera Bioinformatics Algorithm course.
> >
> > However, I want to tell you that Common Lisp resources has plenty of valuable information to learn even if you don't end up using CL regularly. I'm not really a CL user but I still read a lot of CL books for interesting Lisp history and techniques.
> >
> > Racket is also especially nice that it has a strong academic and theoretical community with high quality written papers which are good source of material to understand more about language design and usage.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Lawrence Bottorff <borgauf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm your typical newbie who is hand-wringing over what direction to go in the general functional programming world. Lisp, Scheme, or Haskell?
> >
> > Of late I've been trying to get through the Barski book, "Land of Lisp," but I'm really seeing now why Scheme was created: CL seems to have a ton of gnarl that is part-functional, part-whatever, leaving me wondering and neurotic. And so I'm trying to understand some esoteric, arcane Lisp printing/file management weirdness -- which I'm told is not proper functional style -- after I've just been introduced to yet another CL map variation, after (funcall thunk). So I guess I'd like your advice vis-a-vis Racket. Q: Is Racket "cleaner," or is full of pork too? Or have I just got the wrong book for a beginner?
> >
> > I understand that Barski is slavishly following the "let's get real stuff done" philosophy, but I'm not up to speed with functional yet to even know what's going on. Is your "Realm of Racket" better at this? I feel like I'm spinning my wheels at this point. . . .
> >
> > LB
> >
> >
> >
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