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Mark Watson
markwatson.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Mark Watson is a programmer and author who writes on AI, Lisp, Java, and the semantic web, and gives away his books.
What HN saysCommenters point to his free books on classic AI and Lisp, and one calls him an obviously skilled veteran programmer seen often on HN.
19HN people shared it
12linked it in comments
16stories submitted
430story points
1 year agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming in Java (free)6 people · 29 points · first shared 2008 · 6 comments on HN
- 2I am releasing all my recent eBooks for FREE3 people · 101 points · first shared 2019 · 11 comments on HN
- 3Homepage3 people · first shared 2015
- 4The Free Software Foundation is even more relevant now than before2 people · 205 points · first shared 2013 · 77 comments on HN
- 5Loving Lisp, or the Savvy Programmer's Secret Weapon [Book]2 people · 74 points · first shared 2009 · 8 comments on HN
- 6Practical Semantic Web and Linked Data Applications2 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 7Semantic web and linked data sources1 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 8My new book "Build Intelligent Systems with JavaScript"1 people · 3 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 9The cost of commoditization of computing: infrastructure and software (2009)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 10The Software Development Book1 people · 2 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 11Practical Artificial Intelligence with Java (Creative Commons)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2008 · 5 comments on HN
- 12Practical Internet Privacy and Security1 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · 1 comments on HN
- 13Practical Semantic Web and Linked Data Applications, Common Lisp Edition [pdf]1 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · 1 comments on HN
- 14I finally tried Google Glasses, and: Google vs. Apple1 people · 1 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 15My blog about my Dad’s work with Oppenheimer and the new movie1 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
mark_l_watson · 2023-05-14
+1 I came here to say the same thing. I find much to like in Camus’ philosophy of Absurdism, and a lot I don’t agree with. There are several really good videos on YouTube on Absurdism, enjoyable stuff.
Off topic, but I really like the author’s use of Substack and I just subscribed to their channel. For 30+ years I manually edited HTML for my web site and just a week ago switched my personal domain [1] to Substack (copying over 2000+ old blog articles) and so far I really love the platform even though I am just learning to use it.
[1] https://markwatson.com
discreteevent · 2023-05-05
Also, Mark Watson has a number of free books on GOFAI in different programming languages (including Lisp) here:
https://markwatson.com/#books
Mark Watson on HN:
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mark_l_watson
Edit: I should have said that you can also pay for his books:
https://leanpub.com/u/markwatson
JPKab · 2015-05-06
Just want to put a link on here to a guy I've seen on HN a bunch of times whose name I recognized:
http://markwatson.com/
Point being that it's obvious he's over 50 and also obvious he's a coding badass.
jimbokun · 2008-01-14
Here's a good comparison:
http://markwatson.com/blog/2008/01/cool-common-lisp-elephant-object.ht…
Performance is a big difference:
"Common Lisp compiled code runs much faster than Ruby: typical benchmark results are about 30 times faster - but Ruby's slowness is mitigated if a lot of processing is performed in native libraries like Ferret."
I don't think Ruby has all of the functionality of CLOS or the Meta Object Protocol. Here's Matz commenting on the lack of multi-methods in Ruby:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/49964
"Most OO langauge includes Ruby see methods as "element of an object" This does not hold for CLOS. You loose the tight relationship but gain a new level of flexibility."
Beyond that, I would say pick a programming methodology and there is probably a CL implementation of it somewhere out there built with macros. That's due to the greater maturity of CL and "real macros" (which have been well covered by others already). And beyond macros, the "code as data" paradigm enabled by s-expressions has other uses (I think Steve Yegge mentioned "executable log files" as an example).
davidrupp · 2020-09-20
Since Mark himself may not care to post this: https://markwatson.com/books/ .
shuckles · 2020-05-25
His website has a consulting rate: https://markwatson.com/consulting/
pasbesoin · 2011-01-18
Context, plus some other works:
http://markwatson.com/opencontent/
the_real_r2d2 · 2009-10-20
I would add:
Programming Collective Intelligence (O'reilly)
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529321
http://ianma.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/machine-learning-for-beginners/
Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming in Java
http://www.markwatson.com/opencontent/
yters · 2008-11-13
Here is the author's web page:
http://markwatson.com/opencontent/
mavelikara · 2019-12-18
deepaksurti · 2019-05-19
See Mark’s books here [1]
[1]: http://markwatson.com/books/