LISP Lore: A Guide to Programming the LISP Machine

This book had its genesis in the following piece of computer mail: From allegra!joan-b Tue Dec 18 89:15:54 1984 To: sola!hjb Subj ect: 1 i spm Hank, I've been talking with Mark Plotnik and Bill Gale about asking you to conduct a basic course on using the lisp machine. Mark, for instance, would really like to cover basics like the flavor system, etc. , so he could start doing his own programming without a lot of trial and error, and Bill and I would be interested in this, too. I'm quite sure that Mark Jones, Bruce, Eric and Van would also be really interested. Would you like to do it? Bill has let me know that if you'd care to set something up, he's free to meet with us anytime this week or next (although I'll only be here on Wed. next week) so we can come up with a plan. What do you think? Joan. xiv Lisp Lore (All the people and computers mentioned above work at AT&T Bell Laboratories, in Murray Hill, New Jersey. ) I agreed, with some trepidation, to try teaching such a course. It wasn't clear how I was going to explain the Lisp Machine environment to a few dozen beginners when at the time I felt I was scarcely able to keep myself afloat. Particularly since many of the "beginners" had PhD's in computer science and a decade or two of programming experience.

1. Introduction.- 2. Getting Started on the Lisp Machine.- 2.1 Why Use a Lisp Machine?.- 2.1.1 Why This Book?.- 2.1.2 Looking Ahead.- 2.2 The Keyboard.- 2.3 Typing to a Lisp Listener.- 2.4 Getting Around the Environment.- 2.5 The Mouse.- 2.5.1 The System Menu.- 2.6 The Monitor.- 2.7 The Editor.- 2.8 The Compiler and the Debugger.- 2.9 Getting Started.- 2.9.1 Bringing the Machine up.- 2.9.2 Logging in.- 2.10 A Word About Work Style.- 2.11 This and That.- 2.11.1 Problem Reporting.- 2.11.2 Backup.- 2.12 Problem Set #1.- 3. Flow of Control.- 3.1 Conditionals.- 3.2 Blocks and Exits.- 3.3 Nonlocal Exits.- 3.4 Iteration.- 3.4.1 Mapping.- 3.4.2 Do.- 3.4.3 Loop.- 3.4.4 Implicit Iteration.- 3.5 Lexical Scoping.- 3.6 Macros.- 3.7 Unwind-protect.- 3.8 Fun and Games.- 3.9 Problem Set.- 4. More on Navigating the Lisp Machine.- 4.1 The Scheduler and Processes.- 4.2 Windows.- 4.3 Debugging.- 4.4 The Input Editor and Histories.- 4.5 Mouse Sensitivity.- 4.6 Poking Around.- 4.7 Fun and Games.- 4.8 Problem Set.- 5. What’s a Flavor?.- 5.1 Instance Variables.- 5.2 Methods.- 5.3 Making Instances.- 5.4 Initial Values for Instance Variables.- 5.5 Methods for Make-instance.- 5.6 Mixing Flavors.- 5.7 Combined Methods.- 5.8 Whoppers.- 5.9 Internal Interfaces.- 5.10 Vanilla Flavor.- 5.11 The Flavor Examiner Tools.- 5.12 Message Passing.- 5.13 The Window System.- 5.14 Fun and Games.- 5.15 Problem Set.- 6. User Interface.- 6.1 Program Frameworks: an Overview.- 6.2 Defining Commands.- 6.3 The Redisplay.- 6.4 Presentation Types.- 6.5 Mouse Sensitivity.- 6.5.1 Mouse Sensitivity — the Easy Part.- 6.5.2 Mouse Gesture Translations.- 6.6 Fun and Games.- 7. The Graph Example.- 7.1 The Nodes and Arcs.- 7.2 The Presentation Types.- 7.3 The Display.- 7.4 The Commands.- 7.5 The Mouse Gesture Translators.- 7.6 The Program.- 7.7 Problem Set.- 8. Streams and Files.- 8.1 Streams.- 8.1.1 Standard Stream Operations.- 8.1.2 Special-purpose Operations.- 8.1.3 Standard Streams.- 8.2 Accessing Files and Directories.- 8.2.1 Open and Other Functions for Operating on Files.- 8.2.2 Directories.- 8.3 Pathnames.- 8.3.1 Component Values.- 8.3.2 Case in Pathnames.- 8.3.3 Defaults and Merging.- 8.3.4 Pathname Functions and Methods.- 8.3.5 Logical Pathnames.- 8.4 Making Other I/O Streams.- 8.5 Fun and Games.- 8.6 Problem Set.- 9. The Calculator Example.- 9.1 The Program Frame.- 9.2 The Redisplay.- 9.3 The Command-definition Macrology.- 9.4 The Program.- 9.5 Fun and Games.- 10. Systems, Storage and Errors.- 10.1 Systems.- 10.1.1 Defining a System.- 10.1.2 Compiling and Loading Systems.- 10.1.3 Patching a System.- 10.2 Storage Allocation.- 10.2.1 Allocation and the Garbage Collector.- 10.2.2 Areas.- 10.2.3 Resources.- 10.2.4 Stack Allocation.- 10.3 Condition Handling.- 10.3.1 Signalling Conditions.- 10.3.2 Handling Conditions.- 10.3.3 Creating New Condition Flavors.- 10.3.4 Restart Handlers.- 10.3.5 Proceeding.- 10.3.6 A Few Examples.- 10.4 Fun and Games.- 11. The Card Game Example.- 11.1 Card Definitions.- 11.2 Presentation Types.- 11.3 Card Places.- 11.3.1 Basic Places.- 11.3.2 Presentation.- 11.3.3 Caching.- 11.3.4 Stacked Places.- 11.4 The Interactive Program.- 11.4.1 Games.- 11.4.2 Place Display.- 11.5 The Program.- 11.6 Problem Set.- 11.7 Fun and Games.- 12. More Advanced Use of the Editor.- 12.1 Keyboard Macros.- 12.2 Writing New Commands.- 12.2.1 Zwei Data Structure.- 12.2.2 Command Tables and Command Definition.- 12.2.3 Reading From the Mini-buffer.- 12.2.4 A Real Example.- 12.3 Learning More About the Editor.- 12.4 Fun and Games.- 12.5 Problem Set.- 13. A Quick Look At the Network.- 13.1 The Gee-whiz Look.- 13.1.1 What is a Network?.- 13.1.2 Levels of Abstraction.- 13.2 The Generic Network System.- 13.2.1 How Does Path-finding Work?.- 13.2.2 How Does Service Invocation Work?.- 13.2.3 Other GNS Functions.- 13.3 The Namespace System.- 13.4 Examples of the Use of the Generic Network System.- 13.4.1 Time of Day.- 13.4.2 Who’s Logged in.- 13.4.3 Mail Delivery.- 13.5 Writing Your Own Network Software.- 13.5.1 Writing Your Own User End.- 13.5.2 Writing Your Own Server End.- 13.5.3 Sample User and Server Definition.- APPENDIX A. Basic Zmacs Commands.