Tag Archives: Lisp

(Re)Naming Functions

Posted on 2012-02-17 by jcs

This is another note to myself. Quite often we want to give a function another name. Sometimes this is because we want a shorter name for a function that we use a lot. For example, even though I use smex … Continue reading →

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Generalized Variables and Macros 2

Posted on 2012-02-16 by jcs

Yesterday we talked about some of the difficulties in using setf in a macro and how these difficulties can sometimes be overcome by using the mysterious define-modify-macro. Today, I want to look at a more general approach that will also … Continue reading →

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Generalized Variables and Macros 1

Posted on 2012-02-15 by jcs

One of the wonders of Common Lisp is the generalized variable. Roughly speaking, a generalized variable is an expression that can serve as the first argument to setf. The official explanation, as given in Common Lisp the Language, 2ed., is … Continue reading →

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What Makes Emacs So Great?

Posted on 2012-01-26 by jcs

Over at The Setup they are featuring Phil Hagelberg who has an especially nice take on what makes Emacs so great. He says that Emacs is as close as you can get on modern systems to the fully dynamic environment … Continue reading →

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JSON And S-Expressions Redux

Posted on 2012-01-23 by jcs

After yesterday’s post on JSON Versus S-Expressions I thought that one obvious solution for people who want to use JSON tools to process logs is to have the (Lisp-based) logs convert themselves to JSON much like we did for S-expressions … Continue reading →

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More On JSON Versus S-Expressions

Posted on 2012-01-22 by jcs

I’ve written several posts on JSON, most recently here and here. These last two posts considered the advantages of JSON over S-expressions for writing log files. Although S-expressions are more powerful and flexible than JSON, as explained in the 7-part … Continue reading →

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Functional Thinking

Posted on 2012-01-20 by jcs

Here’s an interesting talk about thinking in a functional way by Neal Ford. I’ve tagged this post as Lisp but Ford doesn’t use Lisp—he uses some weird mutation of Java, a little Groovy, and a little Scala. The point of … Continue reading →

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Safety And The Lisp Read Function

Posted on 2012-01-17 by jcs

For all my blathering about security, here’s a potential exploit in Common Lisp that I never thought about. William Halliburton has a nice explanation of Lisp’s read function and the assoicated read-macro #.. When read sees the sequence #. it … Continue reading →

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Common Lisp Pitfalls

Posted on 2012-01-12 by jcs

Here is a list of Common Lisp pitfalls compiled by Jeff Dalton. They were originally posted to comp.lang.lisp in 1995. If, like me, you’re a Lisp programmer but you don’t write in Common Lisp everyday, it’s probably a good idea … Continue reading →

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A Puzzle

Posted on 2012-01-09 by jcs

After stumbling onto Justin Heyes-Jones’ compile-command tip that I wrote about previously, I decided to trawl through JustinHJ’s Coding Blog to see what other goodies I could find. One interesting post, Word numbers programming puzzle, discusses one of the ITA … Continue reading →

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