[scottlocklin]

I dunno, Lisp is OK. I enjoyed my time with it. The problem with it is, while it may give feelings of transcendent power to the programmer, its real world deployed results are rather lacking, compared to such boring languages as golang, java and so on; or even more obscure ones like Ada or (trolling hard now, but true) Forth. From this alone, it is abundantly obvious its advocates are overstating its utility in solving problems.

The most obvious products of the Lisp world are computer algebra systems such as Reduce, Axiom and Macsyma, and these are all very old pieces of software, rather than something new and interesting used by millions. In fact, you might say the purpose of Lisp is to write the kinds of custom interpreter/compiler expert system/symbolic manipulation systems that people used to think were going to be "AI" in the 1970s.

Sure, our host made his fortune developing in Lisp; he might have done so using some other language. The most obvious lisp projects today are people .... developing new lisp dialects. I'm sure there are plenty of profitable projects in Lisp, just as there are in Delphi, APL and other older non-mainstream languages. But if Lisp were really all that amazing for building useful things, considering the number of people with a smattering of it, it would be used more often. Or at least you'd see more real world results from the Lisp community than you do.

Anyway, pick one up; it's a lot of fun, and it does change your views as to what is possible in terms of communicating with your computer.