[lisper]

> you concluded that Lisp wasn't giving you as much leverage as you thought

No, What I concluded was that Lisp might not give other people as much leverage as I thought it would.

> Maybe those people are just really smart

You can't have it both ways. If they're really smart but nonetheless choosing not to use Lisp then there's probably a good reason.

[Xurinos]

Unfamiliarity? Discomfort? The choice could be emotional as opposed to intellectual. Smart people can spend a lot of time and effort defending the status quo.

[brlewis]

This deserves more discussion. I won't be able to do it justice today, but hope to restart the discussion later, maybe with a comment on your blog.

[lisper]

You might want to read this:

http://rondam.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-are-programming-lang...

(Submitted to HN -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2314572 -- but it died with a whimper.)

[brlewis]

Yes, that's where I would reply.

Unfortunately I'm not surprised it died. It's better thought out than the original Usenet posting, but less controversial.