Lisp Hackers

by Vsevolod Dyomkin

Interviews with 100x More Productive Programmers

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction, Computer Science

77 pages, ebook

First published June 21, 2013

Reviews

[Fabian de Alwis Gunasekare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been meaning to learn Lisp, having skimmed through Paul Graham's books few times in the past. Dyomkin's Lisp Hackers, although dated, gives a very terse but high level idea about what this seriously underrated language is capable of. The interviews are a bit terse and repetitive, but there is sufficient information contained for anyone seriously considering to study Lisp to have some sort of a bearing/overview. Unfortunately, some of the Lisp-shops and blogs referred have gone under, and the remaining few are updated infrequently.

This book marks my first steps towards mastering Lisp, and I hope that I too will be able to experience the enlightenment Eric Raymond speaks of, one day.

"Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot."

- Eric Steven Raymond, How To Become A Hacker

[Aamil Syed · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very drab and repetitive format. Got bored after a couple of interviews. The author could've been more engaging with the subject; every lisp hacker featured here has a special way of looking at the language and so, I feel the questions should have been modified to reflect that. Unfortunately, they are all asked the same sort of bland questions and come up with similar bland answers. Sample this -

Q. Tell us something interesting about yourself.
A. I live in Maine and enjoy hacking Common Lisp projects for fun and profit.

That question is incredibly difficult to answer especially for programmers who are usually shy and reticent. The interviewer should've done their research and prodded the info out of the programmer. Instead he asks this same question to all of them and gets similar bland responses. Well, I certainly wouldn't blame the programmers.

Disappointed.

[Meher Ranjan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly liked the interview of Peter Seibel, author of Coders at Work and Marijn Haverbake, author of Eloquent JavaScript. Ofcourse they are very good writers and hence the content of their interview was crisp, interesting and detailed with enough relevance.

The rest of the interviews were good too but limited to exposing one self to the Lisp language and what domains they are contributing to. Many subjects in the book work in Facebook, Google and on quantum computers and they did mention a fair share of tips.

[Vojtech · Rating 3 out of 5]

For sure the interviews in this book are not as well done as in, say Coders at Work, but I still enjoyed it. I think there are some interesting things mentioned in a couple of the interviews, especially Peter Siebel (the author of Coders at Work, btw). If wish he really did write that book on statistics for programmers! The book is also quite short and available for free. So really no reason why you shouldn't give it a go, especially if you are interested in Lisp.

[Chidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Lisp Hackers" is a collection of interviews with some important contributors in the Lisp community.

It's a good resource for people, like me, who are new to Lisp and want to learn a bit about the language's history and community.

Some of it is a bit dated and the interview questions are a little repetitive. But as a whole, it gives interesting insights into the lives of these Lisp hackers and shares some of the important tools, libraries, and people in the Lisp ecosystem.

[aleksandr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible performant programmers, but the interviewing process is quite generic and thus boring. The author could ask more specific questions to each interviewee, as each of them is quite an extraordinary person.

[Héctor Iván Patricio Moreno · Rating 4 out of 5]

A high-level view of how Lisp can be useful in modern times. Also a source of ideas for projects. A bit dated.

[Aku · Rating 2 out of 5]

This self-published book is just a series of "interviews" with largely the same questions asked in each time. In my opinion a good interview is a real dialogue, a back and forth between the interviewer and the interviewee. This didn't come close to that, and as a result it doesn't feel like a "real" book.

The interviewees were an interesting bunch, so it's worth reading, but reading it online makes much more sense.

[Ye Lin Aung · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good tips from awesome people :)

[Lech Jankovski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lisp is actually alive! Makes me want to try out Lisp in various daily tasks, especially fast prototyping (mentioned by more than 2 interviewees).

[Orest Ivasiv · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a pleasure to read about REAL Lisp hackers.

Book is a set of different interviews (~14) with Lisp hackers. It's very inspiring to read about passion in Lisp community.

[Martin Trejo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting view of people quite involved on software development with lisp.