Customer Reviews

AutoLISP Programming

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This review of AutoLISP Programming: Principles and Techniques by Rawls & Hagen, 1996 ed. is being submitted by Ben Waggoner, an AutoCAD & AutoLISP instructor at Pinellas Technical Education Center, Clearwater, Florida.

I decided to use this textbook in my classes for its straightforward reduction of the AutoLISP language to understandable English. Given this book, a computer lab to work in, and minimal instructor guidance, students who have never programmed in any language before can quickly begin to write simple programs to enhance their productivity with AutoCAD. Simple exercises both introduce the beginner to AutoLISP and at the same time start him/her thinking about "how this might be expanded just a little" to become extremely useful in a work situation.

The text covers some fundamentals of programming that can be carried over into any language one might tackle later (such as good documentation and error-trapping), and these practices are demonstrated in the sample programs. The lessons (chapters) are organized logically in bite-size portions, and have "professional tips" that students can keep in mind as they advance through the exercises. In addition, the book has several appendices of important information for AutoLISP programmers. Tables of DXF codes and a quick-reference for functions are vital for programmers (one can't possibly remember *everything*) but are left out of many books claiming to be AutoLISP references. However, Rawls & Hagen did include them, so I feel that my students are not just buying a textbook for class, but a reference they can continue to use as they cultivate their programming abilities.

With that said, I do have a complaint about this book. "Misteaks" happen in publishing, don't you know, but given that this was presented to the market as a potential textbook, I felt it should be held to a little higher standard than the average dime-store novel. There is a glaring ommission: the ENTDEL function is included in both the index and in the function-reference, but does not appear on the page the index points to, or anywhere else in the book, that I have seen. To avoid embarrassment, teachers should be aware of this before they tell a student to "look it up..." In addition, the TEXTBOX function is included in the entities chapter of the book, but you have to discover that through the function- reference appendix as it did not make it into the index. The coverage of ENTMAKE could have been more thorough, and delved deeper into creating *complex* entities.

However, those are only three functions out of the almost 300 available in AutoLISP under AutoCAD r13. While there are a few other minor errors, they are forgiveable, given the two chapters on dialog box programming and the inclusion of a chapter on debugging effectively and error-trapping. Hopefully the edition for AutoCAD r14 will be completely error-free. I adopted this textbook for my class some time ago and recommend it with very few reservations to my students and associates for its clear language, logical arrangement and good resources.

I have suggested this book to many people in person and on the internet. It had a little of everything and is very good at introducing the reader to the world of Autolisp. As an experienced programmer of other languages I had many questions of how to go on, but was very pleased with it as an intro book.

I have read the other reviews and agree with some and disagree with others. This book is an excellent reference, Appendix B is worthe price all by itself. Appendix A *IS* an alphabetized list of all the AutoLISP functions. Although it does not explain *all* uses of *all* functions, I challenge anyone to show me a book that does! A fine book that I have recommended hundreds of times to hundreds of students. When I sit down to write code, this book is always within arm's reach.

The first reference I ever looked at for writing AutoLISP code was this one, written for R12. I had enrolled in a class that was supposed to teach AutoLISP code, but the class was cancelled because there was only one student in it. When I heard that bad news, I asked the instructor what text he had planned to use and I went out and purchased it myself, it being this text.

I went from knowing nothing about AutoLISP code to writing dialog box driven routines to create 3D houses from a 2D floor plan. The text is clear and well written. There are examples illustrating the topics covered in each chapter. There are professional tips that go a step beyond the basics and provide advice for making your custom application look and behave like an integral AutoCAD command. The text moves at a good pace and in a good direction, making it a good one for a classroom environment. In fact, a couple of years after teaching myself basic AutoLISP code, I found myself the instructor for an advanced AutoLISP course at a community college and I chose this book as the textbook.

I have run across a few typographical errors and some coordination errors between the index and the text, but all in all I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to write AutoLISP code, as well as anyone who has written a little and would like to know more. I am eagerly awaiting the next release that will cover Visual LISP.

My biggest complaint with this book is the lack of examples. Readers are shown only the simplest uses for commands, and are left to fend for themselves when it comes to complicated concepts. Command syntax is never fully explored, so readers are left guessing what else can be used besides the examples given. This book is average for teaching basics, but fails to hit the mark for advanced concepts.

This is a text which covers the basic elements of writing AutoLISP code. It suffers from trying to start at too low a level (explaining, for example, how to use a computer) and pitches too slowly. The authors perhaps have not read Abelson and Sussman's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". Although the advertising blurb claims that it covers all AutoLISP functions, it lacks in clarity of presentation, and has no function-by-function alphabetized reference listing. Given the paucity of AutoLISP texts, this is an acceptable book. Were there more sophisitcated texts available, it would be one to avoid.

I am AutoCAD Programming instructor at a technical college and have used this book for several semesters.
The book is a good reference reference with a good DCL section however I feel it is lacking in "real world" applications.
Also it needs to be updates to include visual lisp functions.

While I found this book very helpful in introducing me to AutoLISP and the exercises are educational & informative, I have two major problems with this book. First, the solutions to the exercises don't exists; there are several exercises I was unable to do successfully after various attempts and there was no solution to help me understand what I was doing wrong. Second, there is no way to contact the authors when the above mentioned situation arises. If they write further additions I hope they will address these issues. I would not recommend this book to a beginner, but it might be helpful to intermediate or advanced users.

I had been working with Autocad for awhile and I always wanted
get to the next level: Customization. All the material
I had researched was for intermediate to advanced levels.
I needed something to get me started and would reward me by
allowing me to get a simple function to work. If you are new
to programming this is the book. Once you take off and get a
better understanding you can always get more information from other sources.
Do your homework and this book will get you there.

I taught myself AutoLISP from this book. I was not a seasoned programmer when I started, only a seasoned ACAD user. I had always wanted to learn AutoLISP, but the AutoLISP tutorial within ACAD--the garden path with tiles--made me feel stupid because I couldn't learn from it. This book was what I was looking for. It starts simple, so I gained confidence as I went. It moves at the right pace, and it covers not so easy concepts, like LAMBDA and MAPCAR. By the end I felt very confident with AutoLISP. Today, it is literally within arm's reach as I write this review. I highly recommend it as a way to learn AutoLISP.