[gouranga]

The language is fine. The framework is not.

It has the appearance of being free and open, but a lot of the framework is not and has aggressive licenses.

It's easy to creep into those bits unintentionally via ignorance or dependency and then you're stuck with the vendor's extensions (MS) which are hard to shake.

(I've been a C# developer since pre-beta days so I'm fairly experienced at getting shot by these things).

Java is pretty much open, there are several implementations and most components in their stacks and application stacks on top are 100% pluggable (including J2EE). The same is not the case for anything which involves WCF, ASP.Net etc.

Ideally ANSI common lisp would be better as there are several competing implementations and one core standard.

[joelhaasnoot]

Don't think that starting with lisp is going to cut it for a "Software Engineering" - type track. Took a CS level "functional programming" class however as part of my Software Engineering track and it has made my life all the more better...

[gouranga]

Well it depends if the students want general purpose knowledge or knowledge that will earn them cash quickly.

Common lisp isn't all that functional TBH (it can be if you want it to be though)

[pnathan]

I'd recommend to hire someone from an all-functional-languages school over a .NET or Java school. I would be confident that they would find things like Java or Python very easy.