Re: s-exprs + prototypes

[Bob Bane <address@hidden>]

Doug Landauer wrote:
>  ....
> I didn't really "get" LISP until I read that little book
> (106 pages, three dollars!), probably in the early 1980's.
> I suspect that this may have been because of the only other
> LISP book I had read at the time.  I vaguely recall it as
> being a book that had a few FORTRAN-ish programs, written
> in LISP.  I don't remember other details of that book.
> 
I suspect the book you are blocking out of your memory is "LISP for
FORTRAN Programmers", a skinny monograph that shows how painful Lisp can
be when you only use PROG, GO, SETQ, CAR, CDR, RPLACA and RPLACD.  An
introductory text for Lisp that does not use recursion - I am not making
this up.  I credit that book (and LISP/370 on a 3270 terminal) with
completely obscuring the beauty of Lisp for me as an undergraduate in
the mid 70's.

Fortunately, I saw Lisp again in graduate school almost immediately...

	- Bob Bane