[ale] Why LISP? (was Why Ruby?)

[sriad at uab.edu (Aditya Srinivasan)]

Hi,

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, John P. Healey wrote:

> I think the main thing I like about Lisp is that it's absolutely nothing like
> perl, smalltalk, c, python, or java.  Whenever I sit down to try and write
> something in lisp the way i would normally write it in {insert language here},
> i find that lisp manages to accurately embody my ideas in the jumbled mess of
> thought that they truly are.  At that point, I usually throw away whatever i've
> written and rewrite a working copy in a tenth of the amount of code, simply by
> abstracting it properly with macros.

I am interested in learning the functional programming paradigm.
Are there any particular resources online/books you would recommend ?
Also any advice about choosing one amongst LISP/Scheme ?

Thanks,
sriad