random question but, when using a #Lisp how do I look up forms to use? like for example let’s say that I’m new to Scheme and I want to know how to get input from the user, and then turn that input into a number

how would I look up the names of the forms that would do those things for me?

with Janet I went through all ~360 top-level forms and created a categorized cheat sheet for myself, with categories like “for handling errors” and “for organizing data structures”. but that took hours and was really laborious, and most Lisps have way more than 360 top-level forms so that would be pretty impractical

@kasdeya@cryptid.cafe i would just use a search engine and add the answer which works to my notes

@kasdeya https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/

@NortherlyGoose oohh this is exactly the kind of thing that I would want! thank you

@kasdeya with CL, you have Vindarel's amazing cookbook, apropos (e.g. M-x slime-/sly-apropos "string" RET: returns a list of matching objects with links to their docs), and also (function) completion in the REPL, provided what you're after is currently loaded. CL has various summaries, like this: https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/X_AllSym.htm (i think there's a better one a fedi user alerted me to once, but can't find it rn).

I see that geiser (for scheme) unfortunately doesn't have apropos... when Guiling, I was searching the manual...

Emacs has its own apropos functionalities too: `apropos-/command/function/library` etc.

I just started into a burst of learning scheme:

(I am not implying it is good or idiomatic, but it does get one
started which is usually all that i need.)
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scheme_Programming/Looping

Spritely's primer is good if you are coming from another language:
https://files.spritely.institute/papers/scheme-primer.html

I like this Brown course docs:
https://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2008/Manual/guide/Lists__Iteration__and_Recursion.html




CC: @kasdeya@cryptid.cafe

For Scheme in particular, its not very high-tech but I just Ctrl-F through the Guile Reference Manual. It's broken up into nice sections like "Pairs", "Bit-vectors", etc etc

In particular, the Procedure Index has a list of every function and a link to the relevant section

(It might still be useful for Schemes in general?)

https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/index.html
https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/Procedure-Index.html

@kasdeya This quick reference is excellent: http://clqr.boundp.org/index.html (see all on awesome-cl !)