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The Little Schemer - 4th Edition 4th ed. Edition

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 178 ratings

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The notion that "thinking about computing is one of the most exciting things the human mind can do" sets both The Little Schemer (formerly known as The Little LISPer) and its new companion volume, The Seasoned Schemer, apart from other books on LISP. The authors' enthusiasm for their subject is compelling as they present abstract concepts in a humorous and easy-to-grasp fashion. Together, these books will open new doors of thought to anyone who wants to find out what computing is really about. The Little Schemer introduces computing as an extension of arithmetic and algebra; things that everyone studies in grade school and high school. It introduces programs as recursive functions and briefly discusses the limits of what computers can do. The authors use the programming language Scheme, and interesting foods to illustrate these abstract ideas. The Seasoned Schemer informs the reader about additional dimensions of computing: functions as values, change of state, and exceptional cases. The Little LISPer has been a popular introduction to LISP for many years. It had appeared in French and Japanese. The Little Schemer and The Seasoned Schemer are worthy successors and will prove equally popular as textbooks for Scheme courses as well as companion texts for any complete introductory course in Computer Science.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This delightful book leads you through the basic elements of programming in Scheme (a Lisp dialect) via a series of dialogues with well-chosen questions and exercises. Besides teaching Scheme, The Little Schemer teaches the reader how to think about computation. The authors focus on ten essential concepts of thinking about how to compute and demonstrate how to apply these concepts in inventive ways. The Little Schemer is an excellent book both for the beginner and for the seasoned programmer.

Review

I learned more about LISP from this book than I have from any of the other LISP books I've read over the years...While other books will tell you the mechanics of LISP, they can leave you largely uninformed on the style of problem-solving for which LISP is optimized. The Little LISPer teaches you how to think in the LISP language...an inexpensive, enjoyable introduction.—Gregg Williams, Byte

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; 4th ed. edition (December 21, 1995)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 216 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262560992
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262560993
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.04 x 6.94 x 0.51 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 178 ratings

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4.6 out of 5 stars
178 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book easy to use and a great introduction to functional programming. They appreciate the teaching style as didactic and entertaining. The format is unique with questions and answers that feel like a conversation. Readers describe the presentation as charming and delightful. The pacing is described as unintimidating, but the progression ramps up quickly, so careful reading is required.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

23 customers mention "Ease of use"23 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to use and a good introduction to functional programming. It walks you through recursion step-by-step until you grasp all the essentials. Readers say it's a great way to learn recursion and the basics of working with Scheme. They mention it improves their ability to work with and understand code on paper.

"...Most of the book is so easy that a complete novice who had never programmed before could understand it, but the authors sneakily keep increasing..." Read more

"...the reader time and time again what recursion is, while providing a great series of rules (commandments) on how to get the most out of recursion,..." Read more

"...introduction to Scheme/Lisp, and more importantly, to thinking about recursive programming...." Read more

"Reading this book is a great way to learn recursion and the basics of working with list processing languages such as Scheme...." Read more

20 customers mention "Learning style"20 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's learning style to be didactic and entertaining. They say it's a great introductory book for functional programmers and one of the best introductions to thought patterns. The book covers an impressive array of knowledge, including functional programming and scheme basics. However, some readers mention issues with referencing.

"...Most of the teaching is by example; the authors show you something several times in several different guises in order to get you to understand the..." Read more

"...What is great about this method is the pacing and the steady revealing of topics and good practices presented by the author...." Read more

"This is a wonderful and thought-provoking book -- almost a gateway drug to higher math and computer science concepts that does not in itself require..." Read more

"...unintimidating, but moves quickly enough to get across an impressive array of knowledge...." Read more

7 customers mention "Format"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's format engaging. It's structured as a series of questions and answers, like a conversation. The format is different from traditional books with long blocks of text.

"...The book is structured as a series of questions and answers...." Read more

"...The format of the book is wonderful. I wish more books were written using the socratic method." Read more

"...As a reader you will quickly grasp the unique format of this book...." Read more

"This is a classic. It's not a traditional book with a wall of text, and it's not a simple list of exercises...." Read more

5 customers mention "Charm"5 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's charm and clever presentation. They find the peanut butter and jelly theme throughout engaging. The book provides an excellent look at recursion with its clever approach.

"...The presentation is charming, from the peanut butter and jelly theme throughout the examples, to the cavorting elephants on the cover...." Read more

"...This book is neither. But it does stand out for its clever approach. I don't particularly care for how it's written, but it is effective...." Read more

"...It is stunning in its beauty, and should be read and re-read by any serious computer scientist...." Read more

"charming and delightful but also massively mind-stretching..." Read more

3 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's pacing. They say it moves quickly enough to convey an impressive message, and the progression ramps up quickly, so readers should read carefully.

"...The progression ramps up quickly, so be sure to read very carefully...." Read more

"...It is light-hearted enough to remain unintimidating, but moves quickly enough to get across an impressive array of knowledge...." Read more

"Quite simply, this book is awesome! The authors of this book are masters of pacing...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2001
    This is a wonderful book for people who enjoy having their minds stretched. It starts from the most elementary concepts (this is a number, this is a symbol) and then proceeds to teach you how to program in scheme (a lisp dialect) using a question-and-answer approach, with the questions on the left hand side of the page and the answers on the right. Most of the teaching is by example; the authors show you something several times in several different guises in order to get you to understand the pattern underlying the programming examples. This form of teaching-by-pattern-recognition is especially useful for scheme, because lisp-based languages represent such a different paradigm from more conventional computer languages that it really helps to have the pattern in mind when you want to write a new function. The authors show how the basic elements of lisp (atoms, numbers and lists) can be used to solve an amazing variety of problems, many of which would be much harder (or impossible) in more conventional computer languages. Most of the book is so easy that a complete novice who had never programmed before could understand it, but the authors sneakily keep increasing the complexity until in the last three chapters they cover continuation-passing style, the applicative-order Y combinator (!) and writing a scheme interpreter in scheme (!!). Some of these topics would go over the head of most computer science Ph.D.'s (go ahead, ask one what the Y combinator is -- I dare you!). This is not the book to read if you're looking for a "teach yourself visual basic in 20 minutes" kind of book, but if you like programming and you enjoy having your mind stretched, you could not do better than this book (or its companion book, the Seasoned Schemer).
    92 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2011
    Little Schemer is without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read on the subject of recursion, and what is interesting because they never really go into a formal definition of what recursion is, as most texts on computer science try to. Instead they show the reader time and time again what recursion is, while providing a great series of rules (commandments) on how to get the most out of recursion, particually in a tail-recursive language like Scheme.

    The book is structured as a series of questions and answers. Each page has several questions on the left hand side, with answers on the right hand side. The overall interpretation of the book is that you can read this without a computer, using pencil and paper to work through the many questions in the book.

    As the reader progresses they will continue to develop and reimplement many useful tools in Scheme that become more and more practical as the text goes on. What is great about this method is the pacing and the steady revealing of topics and good practices presented by the author. Because they gradually accustom the reader to topics like recursion, list operations, and lambda, by the time they show how define is unneccessary in Scheme due to the Y Combinator this rather challenging concept seems somewhat intuitive.

    Overall I think this is one of the greatest computer science books I have ever read. Sure it may not formally define things or be the absolute easiest text to read on the Scheme language itself, but this book should not be used as a reference product - it should be used as a tool bye which the reader strengthens their fundamentals in computer science and programmer, whether or not they ever touch Scheme again.
    15 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2013
    This is a wonderful and thought-provoking book -- almost a gateway drug to higher math and computer science concepts that does not in itself require anything more than basic high-school math.
    It is also an excellent and non-trivial introduction to Scheme/Lisp, and more importantly, to thinking about recursive programming. The progression ramps up quickly, so be sure to read very carefully. If you skim this book you will quickly be lost within a couple of pages, so be very sure to read and re-read anything that you don't completely understand. It's also very important to go through each mini-program carefully to make sure that you understand its syntax and effects. By the time you get to the chapter on the applicative-order Y-combinator the slightest misinterpretation of a function will have your brain spinning in circles.
    The format of the book is wonderful. I wish more books were written using the socratic method.
    4 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2009
    Reading this book is a great way to learn recursion and the basics of working with list processing languages such as Scheme. I can think of no better material for quickly picking up on the patterns of processing data and the organization thereof. As with any treatment of LISP like languages the book concludes with implementing Scheme using Scheme. This makes the final chapters more harry than the initial 75%, but by this point you are already engaged enough to use the constructs of the language to tackle most tasks. Finally, it is certainly a treat to build in less than 200 pages the entire workings of a language used to tackle artificial intelligence. Perfect for mathematically inclined people.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2019
    This will remain on my shelf of favorites for a long time to come.

    As a reader you will quickly grasp the unique format of this book. It is light-hearted enough to remain unintimidating, but moves quickly enough to get across an impressive array of knowledge.

    As others have mentioned, recursive thinking is more demonstrated than directly taught, which I found very effective.

    The final chapters are mind bending and wonderful. It addresses monumental historical theories from Gödel, Turing, and Church while keeping its consistent, simple tone. Only after you've understood an idea fully is its historical significance revealed, and only tangentially to the subject matter at that!

    I commend the authors for their innovative teaching strategies. I was lucky to attend a Racket course overseen by Felleisen after reading this which was a wonderful experience.
    10 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • In dubio veritas
    5.0 out of 5 stars Simpatico e utile
    Reviewed in Italy on January 15, 2023
  • Antonio Bianco
    5.0 out of 5 stars great book
    Reviewed in Germany on January 30, 2020
    This is one of the great books you want to read if you are interested in the LISP language family.
    It approaches it using Scheme (which is somewhat one of the clearest programming language syntax out there)
  • Alfie
    5.0 out of 5 stars I finally understand functional programming (and how to think about recursion properly)
    Reviewed in Australia on August 26, 2019
    I've tried to read several introductions to functional programming books over the years, across several languages (Prolog, Haskell, Lisp), and with each book only after the first few chapters, I've found myself flipping tables and moving on because it just didn't make any sense. However, after picking up this book up, for the first time, everything just fell into place! But not only did it click, it was slap-in-the-face obvious and left me feeling silly that I failed all those times before.

    Word of warning though... this was the first book that I've ever seen in the Q&A style. At first it was quite annoying and made me think why did they write it this way, this is childish. But now I think WOW every hard topic book should be written like this. It's mindblowingly good. Don't give up!!

    This book is highly entertaining and will get you programming functional in no time. Hats off to the authors!
  • Adrian Li
    5.0 out of 5 stars You should learn recursion. This book teaches recursion. Buy this book (or borrow from a library).
    Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2016
    What more can I say?

    This is THE book to start understanding how recursive functions work. It even ends with a derivation for the Y-Combinator! The infamous Y-Combinator isn't just a startup accelerator. That was simply named after the actual combinator that's discussed in this book near the end. Just knowing that is pretty cool, but the value of this book is really in de-mystifying recursion.

    Recursion isn't used in a lot of mainstream programming. It seems to have become out of fashion and very few mainstream languages now have tail-call optimization. Nevertheless, the resurgence in interest in functional programming demands one to learn about recursion.

    Thanks to this book, I'm able to write recursive functions just as easily as writing an iterative for-loop. In fact, recursion has made a lot of my work much simpler because I no longer have to keep track of iterators and the like.

    Highly recommended!
  • Guillermo A. López
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente servicio
    Reviewed in Mexico on July 9, 2015
    Entrega muy rápida y los libros venían perfectamente empacados.

    Estoy muy satisfecho con el servicio rápido y eficiente de amazon de Mèxico.

    Ahora si todos las librerías online de Mèxico van a tener que subir su nivel de desempeño.