Advice need to learn lisp.

[smallƑish]

Hi all genius programmers,I wish to learn AUTOCAD lisp hence Just looking for some advice from you guys.

1. Is Lisp a very complicated language to learn?
2.How long it will take to at least read someone's code and understand it.
3. Is there any professional software to write lisp instead of Notepad.
4. Any recommended website or pdf to get its proper tutorial and notes.

[ВeekeeCZ · Accepted solution]

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@smallƑish wrote:

Hi all genius programmers,I wish to learn AUTOCAD lisp hence Just looking for some advice from you guys.

1. Is Lisp a very complicated language to learn?

Read THIS first 

2.How long it will take to at least read someone's code and understand it.

It's always difficult to follow someone else's logic. It's even harder if someone have it's own style (for me is very difficult to follow Lee Mac's codes - advanced coding in a specific style) It's even quite difficult to follow your own logic over time.

BUT - one of the first things you should learn is code debugging techniques. That really helps. How to trace the code step by step, function by function. How to see current variable values, what the certain function returns...

3. Is there any professional software to write lisp instead of Notepad.

A good free built-in editor VLIDE is shipped with every AutoCAD version. Just type VLIDE into command line.

4. Any recommended website or pdf to get its proper tutorial and notes.

Usually AFRALISP is recommend. And of course, Autocad HELP. 

https://www.afralisp.net/archive/index.htm

https://help.autodesk.com/view/OARX/2022/ENU/

https://help.autodesk.com/view/OARX/2022/ENU/?guid=GUID-36BF58F3-537D-4B59-BEFE-2D0FEF5A4443

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[annoisscary]

I personally think ChatGPT is a great resource for trying to decipher someone's code and figure out exactly what is going on. Which also makes it a great way to learn as it can easily teach you what you are looking at and what each individual line is doing, just feed it a lisp and ask it your questions and it will break it down for you.

However, that being said don't even bother trying to get it to write code for you. Its much better at taking sample data and parsing it than trying to create something on its own. Every code I have ever tried to get back from an AI has been full of errors.

At the end of the day the best way to learn is to actually write some code. Try to think of a small project that you could realistically handle yourself from start to finish and start writing/debugging.

[smallƑish]

Exactly this is what I'm doing now. Example 

[smallƑish]

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation.