Introduction to LISP

Introduction to LISP

LISP, an acronym for list processing, is a programming language that was designed for easy manipulation of data strings. Developed in 1959 by John McCarthy, it is a commonly used language for artificial intelligence (AI) programming. It is one of the oldest programming languages still in relatively wide use.

In LISP, all computation is expressed as a function of at least one object. Objects can be other functions, data items (such as constants or variables), or data structures. LISP’s ability to compute with symbolic expressions rather than numbers makes it convenient for AI applications.

Some good things about Lisp are:

• Lisp is an early example of an interpreted language (though it can be compiled). Interpreting means that you get instant returns to what you type in without going through the repetive cycle of compilation, linking, execution and debugging. This suits AI workers rather well. A requirement of such a language is that it can automatically allocate space for new structures.
• Lisp does not distinguish between program and data. They are syntactically equivalent. This means we can treat code as data.
• Lisp computing environments and interfaces tend to be rather good and promote high productivity.

Features of Common LISP

1. It is machine-independent
2. It uses iterative design methodology, and easy extensibility.
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Applications Built in LISP:-

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Originally published at https://pywix.blogspot.com.