HN Hall of Fame Weekly email

The Land of Lisp

Screenshot of landoflisp.com captured 2026-07-20
Page preview · captured 2026-07-20

Resurfaced independently across 9 calendar years, with breakout response in 5 of them.

submissions
11
submitters
10
observed span
2010–2022
peak thread · 229 comments
477 pts
latest 20+ return · 2022-01-08
183 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

This book comes up in #lisp on freenode every so often, and the channel is generally split on whether or not to recommend it. I generally do. It's fun and lighthearted. Using games as a medium to teach the language is something some people enjoy, and is a lot less dry than most programming books. It avoids taking sides on the editor war, by just ignoring it altogether and teaching Lisp. This is refreshing compared to most books, which hit…

Hi HNers- I'm Conrad (aka drcode) the author of said book. Thanks guys for helping build the buzz around LOL! (I should also thank pg for getting me into this stuff in the first place.) I'll be lurking in this thread today and tomorrow... feel free to post any questions about the book or about Lisp in general and I will answer them. Here's the only coupon code currently for the book. I'm posting it exclusively on HN and proggit…

drcode·398-point thread·

Great story. Unfortunately, the API documentation and tutorial writing guilds went extinct decades ago and has never been able to return to Lispland. :)

bjourne·382-point thread·

This book is well worn, dog eared, and on my home office book shelf. While many people criticize it, for legitimate reasons, it is still a fun and wonderful journey through Common Lisp. I wish more books were written in this irreverent and whimsical style. If however you want a more traditional and "from zero" introduction to Lisp, then "Common LISP - A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation"[0] may be better. If you already know a little bit of Lisp…

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
5

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
1730

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
651

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2010-10-27Land of Lisp is finally out...and has a music video.First breakoutdrcode398108
2010-10-27Land of Lisp: Official Website for the Bookwyclif80
2011-09-19Land of Lispnyellin116
2012-01-18Land of LispDavidChouinard157
2013-01-09How Lisp is Going to Save the WorldHall inductionsmartial_arts382229
2015-06-17Land of Lisp: Secrets of the Seven Guildsprattbhatt30
2017-01-01Land of Lisptosh30
2017-10-06The Land of LispBest threadadgasf477135
2019-04-16Land of Lisp (2010)tosh24780
2021-05-30Land of Lispbirriel30
2022-01-08Land of Lisp (2010)Latest 20+ point returnrg11118386