Learning Lisp

[Cheraphy]

I'm very interested in picking up a purely functional programming language. I figured Lisp would be an ideal choice since Artificial Intelligence is the field of computer science that I'm most interested in. And yet, I've been having a lot of trouble simply getting started.

There seems to be a lot of differing implementations of the language, and as far as I've seen there aren't many that are built with windows in mind (though ports have been made). On top of this I've been finding it difficult to find a really good tutorial/web-site dedicated to learning Lisp.

As I've been searching I've wondered if there was a different language that would be better for me to learn as a first FP language.

So, I've come here for advice. I'm really not sure where I should be going with this, everything I've done so far has been in some imperative language or another, and most of them are descendants from Algol by some level of extension.

[andywestken]

I'm also interested in recommendations for a first functional language.

Haskell seems quite popular on this thread, but I haven't investigated further:
"What's a good Functional language to learn first?"
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/102911/whats-a-good-functional-language-to-learn-first

Andy

P.S. I'm also still looking for good examples of problems that are a lot easier to solve using a functional approach, so I know when to use what!

PPS Haskell is also popular in: "What is the best functional language for scientific programming"
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1348896/what-is-the-best-functional-language-for-scientific-programming
Is it that good??

[andywestken]

And one more!

"Looking for a functional language"
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1148631/looking-for-a-functional-language

This one likes Haskell, too.

But what caught my eye is:

The Haskell developers use Windows and it is well supported (though it causes them agony).

I guess Haskell looks like it's worth following up (for me, anyway)

But I don't know how this fits in with your interest in AI?

Andy

P.S. According to:
"what languages are used in AI research today?"
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2247089/what-languages-are-used-in-ai-research-today
MIT uses Python for its AI work!
The same article mentions that Common Lisp is hardly ever used these days.

[Cheraphy]

I'm pretty torn between haskell and clojure at the moment.

I like clojure's sytnax and resemblance to Common Lisp, and that it runs on the JVM. But it's a relatively young language while Haskell has years of use and user support.

[1yR4jE8b]

Don't count out Racket!

http://racket-lang.org/

[chrisname]

I've tried learning Haskell. It's really difficult. Don't get me wrong, though, the language is fine; it's just trying to understand functional programming that's hard.

[Cheraphy]

I completely understand O: I started trying to learn common lisp a while ago but I gave up. Though, the more I understand about functional programming the more I realize how much more clear it is and how much easier it is to work with. (that's just my opinion though. I also really like prefix polish notation)