Name: On LISP
ISBN: 9780130305527

On LISP

The title itself, "On Lisp", is a reference to the idea that you can solve a programming problem by first building a programming language that lets you talk about your programming problem easier. In Lisp the programmer builds this problem specific language on top of Lisp itself using basic Lisp constructs called "macros". This style of programming is called "bottom-up programming". On Lisp is especially known for the complete description of Common Lisp macros and their uses, but the book also covers many other aspects of bottom-up programming in Common Lisp.

What Hacker News says

astrashe2Aug 2026

Graham's book "On Lisp" is really good. I think we should all try to recognize what's good from people, and call what's bad what it is.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad in SV now.

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drob518Aug 2026

My own personal rule is that every Lisp programmer should understand macros and very rarely reach for them. They are a super-power, but easy to misuse. I think Paul Graham is partly responsible for the “Lisp = macros” thinking and the general overuse of them. On Lisp was a great book but it does lots of things I wouldn’t consider good practice today. After Graham popularized Lisp and macros, there was a period when every Lisp newbie, myself included, was writing macros all the time. Now that I’m older, I know better. Clojure is my daily driver and I haven’t written a macro in years (though I’ve debugged ones other people have written). But I know defmacro is there and I can use it anytime I really need to.

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so-cal-schemerAug 2026

I believe this was built with macros:

Coalton is an efficient, statically typed functional programming language that supercharges Common Lisp by taking great ideas from Haskell, Scheme, and OCaml.

https://coalton-lang.github.io/

Not well known, but surely good software engineering adding features. Lisp* is called the Programmable Programming Language for a reason.

pg wrote a treatise on Lisp macros (free download):

https://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html

(add to that something about great power - great responsibility and not holding it wrong)

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JtsummersJul 2026

If you haven't read it, I'd suggest taking a look at Paul Graham's book On Lisp [0]. He says better, and with more examples than I'd provide in a comment block, what I'd write on the subject. Jump to chapter 8 for his discussion on the topic, referring back to chapter 7 if you find the macro definitions difficult to read.

[0] https://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html

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pratikdeoghareJul 2026

Shut up and learn Common Lisp using Practical Common Lisp.

This would be my advice. Why? My own road was haphazard. Other books broaden your mind and teach you really cool tricks. This book gets you using lisp like you would say golang. But it still teaches you the lisp things and broadens your mind. Time spent choosing will be better spent reading this book. After that PAIP, On Lisp, SICP etc.

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emacdonaMar 2026

I noticed this years ago with technical books. IIRC, Manning was the first publisher that I noticed doing it. Pages so thin that I could see the text on the reverse side as I was reading it - it drove me crazy. O'Reilly started doing the same.

I had a PDF version of On Lisp (Paul Graham put it on his website for free some time after it went out of print). I used lulu.com to turn it into a printed book (1 copy for myself). I love it. The cover art isn't great (low-res image; not Lulu's fault), but the paper stock is amazing (I got to choose it!). The print quality is also great.

Lulu provides some evidence that you can run a profitable business and still offer users the ability to do _very small_ print runs (1 book). I wish they (or someone like them) could work out a deal with publishers that would let me choose the paper stock I want when I order a book online.

But, maybe there are other options...

Two quotes from the article:

> I purchase most of my books through Amazon. I don’t find the speed of delivery that valuable, but the competitive pricing (especially factoring in Prime), ease of ordering [...]

> To add insult to injury, print-on-demand books seem to be significantly more expensive than stock equivalents

That's the classic enshittification playbook right there. Hook 'em with low prices. Once you've captured the market, lower your costs and raise prices.

Vote with your wallet. Go to a bookstore. Small and local is fun if you don't have a particular book in mind. If you do have a particular book in mind, check Barnes and Noble's website. It will tell you if it's in stock near you. If not, order it. If you go to pick it up and don't like the quality of the print/binding -- return it.

edit: fixed spacing for quoted text

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