This might be my favorite programming book of all time.
It's the book that got me hooked on Common Lisp (from Scheme) too. Focusing less on the elegance of the language definition and more on writing elegant programs.
(English isn't as elegantly defined as Lojban and but that didn't hold back Tolkien.)
Lojban is elegant from I guess a logical/mathematical point of view, but I don't think from a human point of view. Iirc "in the land of invented languages", the author pointed out many issues with the language in that even it's biggest fans can't really speak it fluently...so what's the point? Esperanto is probably a better bar here, which I just started reading the Hobbit in lol. I will say that Lojbahn is super cool though. The attitudinals are particularly interesting.
Me too! I came looking for this sort of meta-comment. I've re-read the paper book a few times now.
What makes it my favorite is how clear Norvig's writing is. It's easy to follow (both when reading it in English, and when following its execution if you're a programmer), and it introduces important ideas so effortlessly that, years later, it will give you a chuckle.
Anyone interested in clearly communicating about technical topics, and with a knowledge of Lisp's nature and some idea of what programming in 1991 looked like, might be tickled to read Chapter 1; even its first few paragraphs are refreshing.
It's the book that got me hooked on Common Lisp (from Scheme) too. Focusing less on the elegance of the language definition and more on writing elegant programs.
(English isn't as elegantly defined as Lojban and but that didn't hold back Tolkien.)