
Learning Lisp - Why? - ecounysis
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4724/learning-lisp-why
======
neutronicus
I learned Common Lisp to see what all the fuss was about, and I don't regret
it. I think most claims in its favor are hyperbole, but the Lisp
implementations are very nice pieces of technology, providing features
comparable to CPython with approximately the performance of Java. I almost
always find myself missing some feature of the Common Lisp environment when
working on more lucrative endeavors.

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ecounysis
"Learning Lisp is for the programmer what meditation is for the Buddhist monk
..."

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4724/learning-lisp-
why/27...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4724/learning-lisp-
why/27656#27656)

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bendmorris
Stack Overflow is down for maintenance, so here's a cached version:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QfU7Ls3...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QfU7Ls3W0SIJ:stackoverflow.com/questions/4724/learning-
lisp-why+http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4724/learning-lisp-
why&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com)

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ecounysis
"Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will
have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better
programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp
itself a lot."

\- Eric S. Raymond, "How to Become a Hacker"

<http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html>

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maeon3
Has there been ANY programs written in lisp that has risen to the status of
anything more than novelty?

IBM's watson, the best thing we got going for artificial intelligence, is it
written in lisp? NO, it's written in java. The link from lisp to artificial
intelligence is a lie. Lisp is just a very poor language, it's designed to get
eager novices working on things that are irrelevant so they will learn (the
hard way) that being a good programmer means laughing at the people who
promote lisp as "an epic language". Lisp had its day, somewhere back in the
1950's/1960's. That day is gone.

If I'm working on any sort of problem needing a programming solution, and
someone suggests we use lisp, I buy that person a copy of "The pragmatic
Programmer", and tell them to read it closely.

~~~
gfodor
Clojure is going to provide the true test to see if CL and Scheme's failure to
take over the world is due to inherent problems with lisp or just inertia due
to lack of 3rd party library support.

With startups like BackType and FlightCaster getting acquired, it's a positive
sign.

~~~
mtraven
There have been Common Lisp and Scheme implementations in the JVM for ages
(Kawa, ABCL, and many others -- I wrote one myself called Skij). It's not
clear to me why Clojure took off when those others didn't. But if reinventing
Lisp is what it takes for Lisp to get traction, I'm for it despite my CL
roots.

