[jl2718]

I have personally focused on C/C++, but I would say that Lisp has more natural interpretation to the way that processors and compilers work best. The last 20-40 years have been focused on making them work well for C/C++, which is made for a very simple type of processor, but it hasn’t been a great fit. Modern compilers look at C code and attempt to recognize intent rather than translate to instructions, and then even the processor re-orders everything based on guesses, whereas Lisp is more like a direct declaration of that intent, although somewhat more limited.

Stepping back, there may be some merit to going directly at the assembly. It would not surprise me if computer architects and programmers of the future could align to basically eliminate the concepts of compiler, optimizer, superscalar pipeline, re-order buffer etc. Its really getting ridiculous.