When did you first try Lisp seriously, and which Lisp family member was it?
I guess I started seriously in October 2003. Before then I knew enough elisp to understand the customizations in my .emacs file.
What led you to try Lisp?
I had read a bit about lisp and it had always been interesting. After reading Paul Graham's articles on spam I started browsing the rest of his site. I guess the time was right, because I've been working as a C/C++ developer under Windows for 12 years and was bored. Lisp was powerful, different and an exciting challenge. So I started reading comp.lang.lisp and reading all the documentation I can find on the web.
Where did your road originate?
Well as I said before I was bored with C/C++ and Windows. So after hearing all the great things about lisp I decided to dive in and learn for myself. I've heard a lot of negative comments too, but never from anyone who actually used lisp, so their comments didn't matter.
How far have you gotten in your study of Lisp?
Not very far. I've been reading the online documentation I've found, CLtL2 and the like. I've installed gcl 2.5.0, clisp 2.27 and cmucl 3.0.9 although cmucl isn't working yet. I can start them up and write a quick function, but I'm still not clear on saving a session and restarting it later.
What do you think of Lisp so far?
I like it! I'm sure I will like it more as I gain more experience and knowledge. ;)
Switch Date 2003
RtL comp-lang-lisp | Seek and Ye Shall Find | RtL Paul Graham | RtL Language Curiosity | RtL Emacs Elisp | RtL Eric Raymond