Basic Lisp Techniques

John McCarthy discovered the basic principles of Lisp in 1958, when he was processing

complex mathematical lists at MIT. Common Lisp (CL) is a high-level computer language,

whose syntax follows a simple list-like structure. The term “Lisp” itself originally stood for

“LISt Processing.” When developing, testing, and running a CL program, at the core is a

modern-day version of the original List Processor which processes (compiles, evaluates, etc.)

the elements of your program. These elements, at the source code level, are represented

as lists. A list, in this context, is just a sequence of items, much like a familiar shopping

list or checklist. Originally the list was pretty much the only data structure supported by

Lisp, but modern-day Common Lisp supports a wide range of flexible and efficient data

structures.