When comparing Land of Lisp vs Practical Common Lisp, the Slant community recommends Practical Common Lisp for most people. In the question“What are the best resources to learn Common Lisp?” Practical Common Lisp is ranked 1st while Land of Lisp is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Practical Common Lisp is:
The author writes in a way that's easy to understand, using clear examples to further demonstrate the concepts.
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Pros
Pro Excellently covers real-world web application building
Land of Lisp teaches the fundamentals of building web applications from writing your own server to creating an interactive webapp.
Pro You can learn Lisp while writing games
Land of Lisp teaches all necessary steps to create a graphical game as a webapp.
Pro Includes humorous illustrators to make the learning experience more pleasurable
The author uses plenty of amusing illustrations and jokes to keep the reader interested.
Pro Concise and clear writing style
The author writes in a way that's easy to understand, using clear examples to further demonstrate the concepts.
Pro Lots of practical examples
From very early on in the book, the author introduces practical examples to help the reader fully grasp the topics.
Pro Provides detailed explanation of all major functions
Cons
Con Many terms are not explained
The book starts off fairly slow and easy to grasp. However after the first few chapters, the author starts including new terms and concepts that had not been introduced/explained.
Con Index is lacking
Practical Common Lisp is not a good option as a reference book due to the poor index. Some concepts that span a page or two are not indicated in the index.
Con Code optimization section feels a little light
