[wtbob]

> there is a reason that C is the foundation of computing rather than Lisp. I don't think anybody really thinks otherwise anymore

I must not be anybody, then, because I think that Lisp provides a wonderful notation for thinking about symbolic computation which will last for millennia while C is … a successful programming language of the late 20th century.

> I don't know how you even write a hash table based on cons cells rather than O(1) indexing.

A cons cell is just a double-pointer. You can write a hash table using conses just as easily as you would using pointers (note, I'm not saying that'd be efficient, which is why Lisp offers arrays as well as conses).