You have your Common Lisp environment set up. You can load and run a Lisp file. Now what?

Many would be Lisp programmers get to this point where they are ready to really start learning and then find themselves wondering “What are cool projects for learning Lisp that would interest a beginner programmer?”

Here are some ideas.

  1. A simple website

    Websites powered by Common Lisp are not uncommon. If you’re going the web way, this is a good place to start. The heavy lifting is done by libraries. Use Quickdocs to find them.

  2. A web crawler

    Like ‘A simple website’ most of the heavy lifting is done by libraries. This is a good project to learn the library ecosystem and for dealing with text.

  3. Project Euler problems

    These are well defined problems with lots of help available and solving them should not require too many libraries. On the downside, as the maths gets harder it may distract you from learning Lisp.

  4. Suduko solver

    There are many others. If you want to compare performance this may be it.

  5. Implement a Python standard library

    It could set you up to become famous in the community. Just choose your library wisely. Search Quickdocs to see what is not yet done.

  6. Game of life implementation

    If simulation or artificial life is your thing.

  7. Space invaders (text based)

    Get going in the Common Lisp gaming community. Stay with a text based interface to keep the focus on learning Lisp.