Elementary Programming

This chapter shows how the essential features of LISP are used in programming. The first section presents the ideas involved in straightforward (i.e., no loops) computation. Section 2.2 shows how recursive computations are programmed using COND, IF, and DEFUN. In Section 2.3, programs are developed and stored in files which are external with respect to the listener. Search functions are introduced and their importance is explained in Section 2.4. Methods for improving efficiency through the use of extra variables and functions are described in 2.5. Association lists and their application in an English-to-Inuit translator are presented in Section 2.6. Section 2.7 discusses fixed-point computation. Section 2.8 gives additional details on simple input and output functions and the use of streams.