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Hofstadter on Lisp (1983)

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372 points Eric_WVGG | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 13:44 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kjellsbells ◴[16 Oct 24 15:32 UTC] No.41860281[source]▶
Regardless of your opinion on the utility of Lisp, this is an exemplary piece of writing. Crisp, engaging, informative.

God I miss old Scientific American. Today's SA isn't especially terrible, but old SA, like old BYTE, was reliably enlightening.

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sgustard ◴[16 Oct 24 15:45 UTC] No.41860442[source]▶
The title of his column and book "Metamagical Themas" is an anagram of Martin Gardner's previous column "Mathematical Games". It's clever wordplay turtles all the way down.
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madcaptenor ◴[16 Oct 24 16:30 UTC] No.41861022[source]▶
Other Hofstadter book titles with wordplay:

- Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (you have GEB/EGB, and I guarantee you he noticed those notes form a musical triad)

- Metamagical Themas (anagram of Mathematical Games)

- Le Ton beau de Marot (I don't have my copy at hand, but "ton beau" is surely a pun on "tombeau" meaning "tomb")

- The Mind's I (editor) (I = eye)

- That Mad Ache (translation of "La chamade" by Francoise Sagan; "mad ache" is an anagram of "chamade")

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1. shrubble ◴[16 Oct 24 21:18 UTC] No.41863941[source]▶
At least one of the covers of GEB specifically had artwork that shows GEB/EGB : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach