Lisp in 100 Seconds

Lisp is world’s second high-level programming language and is still used to build software today. It was the first to implement many popular programming techniques like higher-order functions, recursion, REPL, garbage collection, and more.

#programming #code #100SecondsOfCode

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🔖 Topics Covered

- What is Lisp?
- Should I learn Lisp?
- Lisp basics tutorial
- Who invented Lisp?
- Lisp vs Fortran
- Lisp vs C

[zaynelumpkin]

Learning to program a little Lisp (specifically, Racket) was one of the most rewarding things I ever did as a programmer. The syntax and the approach was so different from anything else I'd ever used, but Lisp was so internally consistent, and everything worked together perfectly once you figured it out; Everything is a list, every element of a list can be a list, and everything can be done recursively. It feels like a language from another planet, and getting familiar with it really expanded my mind and my approach to problems in programming.
Learning some Lisp is an incredible way to challenge your assumptions and expand your ability to think about problems.

[SirKurt]

4 years ago, I was responsible for maintaining a giant project from 1978, written in Lisp. There was a widely used syntax in that project and I didn't know what it did or how it worked. I searched the internet but nobody knew what it did. I just stopped meddling with it and ignored it for a while. Only later I discovered that syntax was possible thanks to a custom macro written in the project itself. The boomers created a domain specific language and didn't document it.

[taylankammer]

Some corrections and clarifications:
1. Scheme (1975) is older than Common Lisp (1984). Both are derived from but significantly different from John McCarthy's original LISP (1958) which is not used anymore.
2. The various "Lisp" languages are actually as different as C, C++ and C# so I would discourage from speaking as if "Lisp" is one programming language, unless you mean the original LISP.
3. Usually people say "LISP 1.5" when they mean the original one from McCarthy, because that's the last version of the original language that he published.
4. Some of the important innovations were first invented in Scheme, not LISP. That includes lexical scoping, true first-class functions/closures, and "hygienic" macros.
5. Scheme and Common Lisp are standardized, like C, and there are many implementations of them. CLisp is just one Common Lisp implementation, like GCC for C.
6. Scheme was originally a research project, and while newer and more feature-rich standards were published over the years, the standards continue to be very minimal. So you'll usually commit to a specific implementation, like Racket or Guile, if you want to do something serious with it.
7. Both Common Lisp, and serious/modern implementations of Scheme, can be and are used for "real" serious software projects. For example GNU Guix is a complete GNU/Linux distribution with many core components implemented with the Guile implementation of Scheme.
8. Both Common Lisp and Scheme can be compiled rather than interpreted, it's up to the implementation. The Chicken Scheme compiler actually converts Scheme to C before compiling it with a C compiler for instance.
9. Any talk about the Lisp family of languages is incomplete without mentioning Emacs Lisp. ;-) Emacs is essentially an implementation of a custom LISP-derived programming language called Emacs Lisp (most similar to Common Lisp from the bunch) that is special-tailored to the task of implementing a text editor in it.

[afmikasenpai]

1:49 The function name caught me off guard.
Great content as always !

[xahmad]

This is honestly the first 100 seconds video where I had to pause a video to understand the content ( so I can put it on my resume ofc )

[LongDayAlone]

As a Clojure Dev, it warms my heart seeing u cover lisp!
Well played sir!

[oneandonly_h]

So happy to see you reviewing one of my favorite programming languages of all time!!

[expertdev]

It's wonderful to know that amazing languages were created on the middle of fifties and sixties and they keeps running modern computers and also they are used like mockups for new languagues. I love those short videos, please keep us up-to-date about the things that the universities and institutes don't share with its students. Thanks Fireship!

[EngineerNick]

There is a variant of lisp in autocad and I made it draw a vectorized mandlebrot using a marching squares algorithm. Probably the most productive thing I ever did in both Lisp and Autocad XD

[usopenplayer]

Been craving a LISP video from you. Great and simple breakdown.

[larrytron]

LISP was the programming language used for Naughty Dog’s Crash Bandicoot series on PS1 and Jak & Daxter series on PS2

[lighter]

Man, thanks a lot, finally I can start doing my lisp hw after delaying it and waiting for your 100seconds lesson.

[emmanuelconstantinidis]

Now that Fireship has made a video, my coworker will finally believe me that Lisp is a serious language!🙏

[nissanGold]

Learning Racket (a LISP type language) in Uni helped me solve harder recursive problems.

[josueteodoro]

I began learning common lisp this week. I was shocked to see your video pop up while reading the practical common lisp cookbook.

[CptJackass]

I just started reading the wizard book (Structure and Interpretation for Computer Programs) and this is the first thing I see.
Thanks for the content!

[engelshernandez]

I came to your channel yesterday looking for this video. Thanks!

[marna_li]

Thank you, for exposing us to the wonderful world of programming languages, frameworks, and other computer-related topics. 🙂

[miclaymon]

i just got an assignment to do in Lisp this weekend. good timing.

[yusufmalikul]

Thanks for the quick tutorial.

I saw Lisp on every old essay online.

I need to learn it now.