In my experience, Common Lisp often doesn't come out best at the code snippet level. Where it shines is in building whole systems. After a while one passes an inflection point where one realizes, "Holy cow - what I'm doing now is supposed to be way harder than it is". I probably have this experience every week.
You obviously put a lot of sincere effort into learning Lisp and I agree with much of what you say. After all that work, I wish I knew an easy way to communicate the joyful side to you.
The best demonstration of that "big system" effect that I've seen, that's easy and small enough to read and comprehend, is the database[1] or unit testing[2] chapters in Practical Common Lisp. They show good examples of using macros and HOFs to completely remove boilerplate code, and that it's simple enough to do it for even simple boilerplate.
Unfortunately that is not really what people mean with "big system" - although I do agree with your point. It shows how nice it can be when you add on complexity.
Which means you have to rely on he said/she said, hearsay and other totally non objective accounts.
To find out for myself, I plan on one day doing something large and messy with arc. I pick arc cause I figure in the eons it will be before I get around to it, arc will still be around (s/arc/a lisp/)
It may well be that it only really becomes apparent on larger projects. It's hard to get to that point, though, and maybe that's why the takeup is low.
OTOH, some languages are particularly good on small things, but don't offer much help for large problems.
Just out of curiosity, did you like working in Lisp? I mean, if you can abstract away from the annoyances you cited, did you actually enjoy the Lisp mode of programming (basically, writing syntax trees)?
The "I did": It seems very sensible to use s-expressions for everything. That lispy syntax meant that I started seeing ways to encode almost everything as lisp. I even started keeping a todo list in s-expressions;
(do
(buy bread)
(tidy (kitchen living-room bathroom))
(get life))
The classic XKCD cartoon had it perfectly: "I felt a great enlightment. I saw the naked structure of Lisp code unfold before me. The patterns and metapatterns danced. Syntax faded"
I didn't: when it came to actual common lisp, cracks started to appear. The crazy mini-language for looping. The arbitrary-sounding names. The feeling that, if I ever wanted to do anything remotely windows-specific I would face years of horror.
I read your post. So, you appreciated the core beauty of the thing but the details got you down. What a shame.
I think what happens to most of us who love Lisp is that, at a certain point, the initial frustrations are eclipsed by how much more productive we are (and liberated, if I may put it that way). That point comes sooner for some than others. In your case, not soon enough. But Lisp will no doubt still be around if you ever do decide to get back to it.
i never really touched lisp until Arc. i knew lisp was the language i wanted to be programming in, but common lisp feels mainframey and scheme has an ivory-tower anal aura about it
once Arc gets its own independent implementation i will probably start using it more heavily and seriously
You obviously put a lot of sincere effort into learning Lisp and I agree with much of what you say. After all that work, I wish I knew an easy way to communicate the joyful side to you.