Re: Sprucing up the HyperSpec
I think this is a reasonable position, When I was learning cl, I would find myself trying to figure out what a function did,
or maybe, which version of let/let* to use (without even knowing of the existence of labels).
I would also find that even after reading the spec, I wouldn’t fully understand how to use it, I would be able to copy in the examples that they have written, but as I don’t have any context, I have to fiddle with parameters until I start to get an understanding of how a function behaves.
I don’t know if clojure is taboo on this mailing list, but it may be worth having a look at how their documentation is presented, (It’s not a spec, but it allows people to add examples, possibly with a comment on when this could be useful, or what other options are available). (eg. https://clojuredocs.org/clojure.core/-%3E).
I think there is definitely a space for a more engaging, and easier (for beginners) to parse documentation.
As an aside, it may be worth looking into http://phoe.tymoon.eu/clus/doku.php, to see if it can be filled out, and become a fleshed out source.
Hamish
--
:wq!
On 1 Jun 2016, at 15:58, Matthew Holevinski wrote:
> There are quite a few other learning materials I have yet to look at. The
> SICP makes more sense to me than that god awful gigamonkey tutorial list.
> Object Oriented programming is something that makes the least amount of
> sense to me I'd stand a better chance learning VHDL. Now writing a
> Raytracer is something that highly appeals to me, that might be something
> I'll plan on looking into.
>
> But back to the HyperSpec as a reference, I was just saying I don't think
> it would hurt to spatter it with some layman examples, but if violating
> it's purity is a problem, maybe posting links that point to layman examples
> would help from within it's confines. Only because when you aren't already
> a 3 star programmer, I find myself looking up the references of the
> references from within the reference. Like reading a word you don't
> understand in a dictionary for a word you don't already understand and then
> turning to page 3 to continue your adventure.
>
> Matt
>
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:43 AM, Robert Goldman <rpgoldman@sift.net> wrote:
>
>> On 6/1/16 Jun 1 -9:40 AM, Lieven Marchand wrote:
>>>
>>> Matthew Holevinski <eylusion@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Add a little bit of verbosity to some of the edge case flags and
>>>> options for the functions in more of a natural english semmantic,
>>>> instead of from the perspective of a master programmer who could write
>>>> an OS kernel from scratch.
>>>
>>> Have you tried Common Lisp the Language, 2nd. Edition?
>>>
>>>
>> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/ai-repository/ai/html/cltl/cltl2.html
>>>
>>> There are some differences between the language it describes and
>>> standard Common Lisp but most of these shouldn't be relevant to a
>>> novice.
>>>
>>
>> You could also try Keene's Object-oriented Programming in Common Lisp,
>> if you are particularly interested in CLOS (which is not in CLtL2).
>>
>> best,
>> r
>>
>>