Discovering Beautiful Lisp Code: A Comprehensive Guide

Reading beautiful Lisp code can be a delightful experience, leveraging the language's unique syntax and expressive power. This guide will help you explore and discover elegant Lisp code through multiple resources and communities.

Where to Find Beautiful Lisp Code

There are several places where you can find well-crafted and expressive Lisp code. Let's explore these resources in detail.

GitHub

GitHub is a leading platform for hosting open-source projects. Search for repositories using Common Lisp or Scheme to find well-structured code. Look for projects that have comprehensive documentation and active communities. Some repositories that you might find interesting include:

Quicklisp: A library manager for Common Lisp. Quicklisp hosts numerous well-written libraries. You can browse popular libraries and their source code to find idiomatic Lisp code. CL-JSON: A library for JSON handling in Common Lisp, showcasing clean and beautiful code.

Books

Books dedicated to Lisp often contain numerous examples of clean and practical Lisp code. Some notable books include:

The Art of Lisp: This book contains numerous examples of clean and practical Lisp code. Paradigms of AI Programming by Peter Norvig: This book presents Lisp programming in a fun, engaging way with beautiful code examples.

Blogs and Articles

Many Lisp enthusiasts write blogs about their experiences and projects. Some notable blogs and articles include:

The Lisp Curse: A blog that often features beautiful Lisp code snippets. Lisp Hacks: A collection of interesting Lisp programming techniques and examples.

Online Communities

Engaging with online communities can provide you with links to beautiful code and insightful discussions. Some relevant communities include:

Reddit: Subreddits like r/lisp and r/programming can be excellent resources for finding interesting Lisp code and discussions. Stack Overflow: Searching for Lisp-related questions can lead you to beautifully crafted answers and code snippets.

Code Golf Challenges

Code golf challenges, as seen on websites like Code Golf Stack Exchange, feature creative solutions in Lisp where participants try to solve problems in the fewest characters possible. This can be a great way to see creative and efficient Lisp code.

Academic Papers and Theses

Academic papers and theses written in Lisp often demonstrate elegant coding practices, particularly in fields like AI and symbolic computation. These can be a great resource for advanced knowledge and inspiring code examples.

Personal Favorites

Here are a few projects and libraries that I find particularly appealing:

Robert Strandh's SICL: An implementation-in-development of Common Lisp. Peter Norvig's exposition and code in Paradigms of AI Programming: This book presents Lisp programming in a fun and engaging way. Edi Weitz's regex library, CL-PPCRE: A powerful and elegant library for regular expressions in Common Lisp. Michael Stoll's COMPUTABLE-REALS: A particularly elegant hack. My library, FORMULADOR: A tool for typesetting math formulas in a terminal.

These resources and projects should provide a wealth of high-quality and beautiful Lisp code for your enjoyment and inspiration. Happy coding!