My first 'major' project was writing a Lisp interpreter from scratch. Looking back on it, my implementation was horrible, the design atrocious, and the extensibility null. However, I remember how AWESOME it was at the time to be able to run my code on my own interpreter. What mattered most about that project wasn't the program itself: it was what I learned in the process. I guess my point is, no matter how shitty your code is, you learned something from writing it. So don't wait for a 'firm foundation' to start hacking away, just dive in and feel free to screw up. Just don't screw up in the same way the next time you do it.
I've got to agree with this. Writing Lexers/Parsers/Interpreters is some of the most fun I've had programming. When your program can run other programs, that's a huge thrill.
Read EoPL, it's awesome (and free) and LiSP is awesome but expensive. In fact almost every Lisp related textbook seems to have several lisp interpreters in it.
edit: As noted below EoPL is apparently not free, and it seems that I've inadvertently pirated it from somewhere.
Comments
My first 'major' project was writing a Lisp interpreter from scratch. Looking back on it, my implementation was horrible, the design atrocious, and the extensibility null. However, I remember how AWESOME it was at the time to be able to run my code on my own interpreter. What mattered most about that project wasn't the program itself: it was what I learned in the process. I guess my point is, no matter how shitty your code is, you learned something from writing it. So don't wait for a 'firm foundation' to start hacking away, just dive in and feel free to screw up. Just don't screw up in the same way the next time you do it.
I've got to agree with this. Writing Lexers/Parsers/Interpreters is some of the most fun I've had programming. When your program can run other programs, that's a huge thrill.
Read EoPL, it's awesome (and free) and LiSP is awesome but expensive. In fact almost every Lisp related textbook seems to have several lisp interpreters in it.
edit: As noted below EoPL is apparently not free, and it seems that I've inadvertently pirated it from somewhere.
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/eopl/
http://tinyurl.com/lispinsmallpieces
I'm working on a toy (for now) lisp in javascript at the moment and it's profoundly unimpressive but has been hugely fun and educational for me.
"Read EoPL, it's awesome (and free)"
EoPL is not free afaik. I agree that it is an awesome book.