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I would like to study Queinnec's book "Lisp in Small Pieces". I already have the English version of the first edition, the French version of which appeared in 1994, at the time of the R4RS. A quick look at the table of contents of the second edition (of which only the French version exists) doesn't show any significant change: only the addition of some subchapters entitled "Recommended reading", and the demotion of some subchapters of the first edition to being only sub-subchapters in the second. Furthermore, Queinnec himself somewhere describes this book (published in 2007) as slightly revised and updated to the R5RS.

If anyone has both edition (or at least has browsed through them), is it possible to know in more detail where the two editions differ?

After all, the jump from the R4RS to the R5RS (and the 13 years gap between the two editions) is quite significant, so I wonder whether I should spend 40 Euros on the second edition (which, otherwise, seems hard to find in public libraries).

Alex M.
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  • Really, really hard for me to understand why this got a downvote so far. I find it an intelligent, well written and respectful question. – Alex M. Sep 21 '18 at 13:31
  • This isn't meant as a facetious comment, but have you considered just mailing him? He has a home page and his mail address is on it. His opinion on the differences would be, if not the best, at least pretty authoritative. –  Sep 21 '18 at 14:13
  • @tfb: I could do this, but this would put Queinnec in a position of conflict of interests: now that he is retired (so his revenue has dropped significantly), the author of the book and the owner of the Paracamplus publishing house (which doesn't seem to sell a lot), would you see him happily answering "No, dont't buy it, use the old edition"? – Alex M. Sep 21 '18 at 16:00
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    He describes the new edition as 'slightly revised': I don't think you'd do that if you were desperate to push the new version. So yes, he might well say that. You can only gain information by asking: if he says 'no, get the new one' then you may decide that doesn't tell you anything, but if he says 'stick to the old one' it *does*. –  Sep 21 '18 at 17:49
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    the English edition is just a *beautifully* done book. A precious artifact. The binding, cover, the paper, ... typesetting ... just beautiful. – Will Ness Sep 24 '18 at 12:06
  • Alex, did you find out? – mihai Aug 25 '21 at 13:35
  • @mihai: No, I haven't. I also haven't investigated any further, though. – Alex M. Aug 25 '21 at 14:36

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