You covered a lot of ground in this chapter. Starting with an overview of how Visual LISP works, you found out the concepts behind the evaluator, what symbols are all about, and how to define functions. The example demonstrated list processing and the use of program code as data while showing off the power inherent in the language.

Visual LISP is unlike most other computer programming languages. If you work with other languages, you will know that you have mastered Visual LISP when in your other code, everything is a function and returns a value to be used by a calling function that in turn sends a value back. Perhaps the only drawback to Visual LISP is the enormous library of functions that are available for a variety of application-related tasks. With more than 800 functions, many of which remain to be documented, it is easy to overlook one or two that may be important for your current work.

If the concepts behind list processing unnerved you, do not worry. Lots of Visual LISP programs are written with a distinctive accent from other languages. The program in this chapter, for example, could have been written more quickly as a series of outputs for a small list of items. FORTRAN, C, Basic, or Pascal programmers might be more comfortable avoiding lists until some basic concepts are understood, such as the fact that lists are a lot like arrays and structures, two powerful storage strategies design to optimize the repeating nature...