clock … watching time, the only true currency

I’ve shared my respect for Paul Graham’s work before (more). I’ve pondered learning how to program many times. So this Slashdot thread last week, “AppJet Offers Browser-Based Coding How-To, Hosting,” pointing to AppJet as a Graham-recommended way to learn how to program caught my attention.

When you follow the link, you see the reference to AppJet. What you don’t see is that Graham’s company, Y Combinator, funded AppJet. I like that he’s put his money behind the effort, but straight up disclosure of the investment, in context of the recommendation, would be even more powerful.

I’ve read the first chapter of Graham’s book ANSI Common Lisp. If Graham thinks Lisp is so great, I’ve wondered why he doesn’t suggest starting with Lisp as a programming language.

Graham almost answered the question in my title here in his Lisp FAQ.

But not quite.

Is Lisp’s power and beauty only recognizable to those who’ve already scaled the heights in another language?

Actually, I’d added a link to Delicious for the AppJet intro course before this high-powered reference. I have a question which I’d still love to see answered.

“Javascript programming = good habits or bad? (as applied to other languages)”

Anyone?

(Side note: interested to see that Graham suggests Python as an alternative that is becoming more Lisp-like. The rise of Django, a framework built on Python, only accelerates.)