From Newsgroup: gnu.emacs.help

Hello all

I need to take structured action, as every project I do with emacs
lisp is painfully clumsy.
I want to invest a campaign of effort now to get future gain.

I have written eg. a computational-numerical heat conduction solution
("only" 1-D) in emacs lisp - and oh yes yes yes yes has it been
useful.
On the other hand - I didn't even know about fn. "nth" when dealing
with lists until a few days ago.

Recommendations?
Settle with book(s) which have projects you can adjourn to the
computer with?
See and learn to express what the language makes possible?
Tutorials where you are almost certain to see like applications in
your own world of expertise(!) and "run with it"?
(I picked-up Finite Element Analysis modelling that way)
There's Stallman's book...
Others do show up on Web search - not many but they are there.
But what is recommended.

I need to do general programming.
While mindful the emacs interpretter and the AutoCAD interpretter
deliver from Lisp functions.

Thanks in advance,
Rich Smith
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From Newsgroup: gnu.emacs.help

Richard Smith <null@void.com> writes:

I need to take structured action, as every project I do with emacs
lisp is painfully clumsy.

Sounds familiar. It was the same for me about 5 years back ...

I want to invest a campaign of effort now to get future gain.

... until I decided to learn Lisp.

Recommendations?

If I remember correctly, I started out with

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/eintr/index.html

but soon jumped frequenty between it,

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/index.html

, and

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/book.pdf

Note that the latter is about another Lisp dialect, Common Lisp, but the
Lisp family is such a strange beast when you come from an imperative programming background (which was the case for me and, from your
mentionings of FEA, I suppose for you as well), that it REALLY paid off
for me to also read a GENTLE introduction.

Learning Lisp (I got hooked by it) changed my way of thinking about
programming forever (even in other languages) and proved immensely
useful, since by now I feel well at home when it comes to tweaking Emacs (making this editor even better).

So highly recommended, but be prepared for the intellectual experience
of a lifetime: So many bare threads got linked, so many circles closed.

Best regards

Axel
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From Newsgroup: gnu.emacs.help

Sorry for the double follow-up, but I forgot to include this link:

http://www.lisperati.com/casting-spels-emacs/html/casting-spels-emacs-1.html

This should also be quite a nice get-going.

Axel
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From Newsgroup: gnu.emacs.help

Axel;
thanks for sharing your own path and what worked for you.
Will follow the links.

20 years ago I read Paul Graham's "On Lisp".
It got me started, for sure.

I had seen "Python" and I sensed something behind it. ie. Lisp.

But I suspect I need tutorials where people convey forms of expression
they find useful, inspiring, magical, etc. Draw you on and enduring recollection.
Rather than a language reference manual.

Well, I will see where your links get me.

Regards,
Rich S
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From Newsgroup: gnu.emacs.help

I'm guilty of a second follow-up message :-)
Yes I/we/you do feel a genuine interest about Lisp and how to develop
it. It has that effect.
I think there is something rational and right about it, which draws
you back.
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