[bitcracker]

Lisp is too powerful only for unexperienced developers because the way of programming in Lisp is totally different from all other languages.

Actually many modern languages (Python, Ruby, Java, even C++11) copy more and more features from Lisp since the language designers suddenly realized how useful these features are.

Lisp was never "too powerful" but simply far ahead.

[michaelochurch]

Lisp makes it really easy to build infrastructure and multiplier-level (Level 2) contributions that affect the whole shop. When you have 1.3-1.4 programmers (scale here: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-trajector... ) who aren't ready to take on projects that will affect other people in such a major way, you can get bad results. That's a management problem, though. Inexperienced developers need to have opportunities to experiment, but if others are forced to sit downwind of their work, then management is behaving badly.