Interlisp
Zen of Interlisp
In the October 22, 2025 I floated the idea of a Zen of Interlisp, a set of aphorisms inspired by the Zen of Python that concisely expresses the guding principles of the language and characterize what is idiomatic. It may be a useful learning resource and draw attention to Interlisp.
Here are some sample aphorisms on Interlisp and its environment.
- the price of forgiveness is looseness (inspired by Larry's remarks in discussion #2318)
- managed is better than unmanaged (going with the File Manager is better than manually editing and tracking files)
- props are a honking great idea (propery lists are ubiquitous in the Interlisp environment for objects such as windows, font descriptors, textstreams, and so on)
- windows are streams (most stream I/O primitives work out of the box with windows)
You're encouraged to share yours.
I think it's an excellent idea.
As a newcomer I've read a good deal from all the manuals but of course it's easier to understand the culture of something rather than try to apply your own broken notions and then have to keep back tracking.
This also overlaps the notion of a "cookbook" in some places as well.
Here is an example: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/os.html
And of course the classic Common Lisp Recipies: https://a.co/d/9u81Ycu
I know even with my limited knowledge, when working with the OS there are moments of "There is no way a newcomer would know that - but it's useful."
I think there is a lot of "tribal knowledge" with InterLisp.
For long time Lispers, some familiar functions like GENSYM and ELT have some caveats which can go unnoticed. For example, LAMBDA surprised me because I've not have had to quote it or call FUNCTION with it in ANSI Common Lisp, MIT Scheme, or Emacs Lisp. Lexical scope has become the default too these days - that kind of thing.
The IRM is very handy, but learning how to write idiomatic code from it alone is like trying to write short story having only a dictionary.
Just my 2 cents (maybe a dollar's worth).
