Lisp Rocks

Yes, it is true.

I have been programming for over 20 years now, and have programmed professionally in C, C++, Java, different assembly instruction sets, a variety of languages derived from BASIC, and a slew of web languages. And in all that time I've always had love/hate relationships with those languages, and was always wishing they did more or, more often, let me do more.

Now I've been learning Common Lisp (aka CL) for about 9 months. And, I must say, for anyone who cares (and there may be precious few) CL rocks. Other languages pale when compared to Lisps strength and ease. And, I'm not kidding. CL, despite having parentheses all over the place, is vastly more powerful than other languages and lets you go from point A to B quickly and easily.

It is hard to quickly explain how Lisp could be so superior to other languages, but I can give an analogy. If Common Lisp is English, then all the other languages are Newspeak (from George Orwell's 1984). In English we say: "That's great." And in NewSpeak we say "That is double plus good".
The point here isn't just that CL is concise, but that it is expressive, or better said: naturally and accurately expressive. There is no significant difference when comparing "That's great" to "That is double plus good" out of context, but there is a vast difference between English and NewSpeak when trying to compare subtle meanings in a page long poem. This is as it is with Lisp - the larger and more complex the project, the more Lisp shines when compared to other languages - the more Lisp is a help and not a hindrance.

Anyway, I know most of you do Photoshop and PHP, and 40 year old languages probably aren't of any interest. But it should be of note that there are many web server applications written in Lisp, especially the really complex ones (airline reservations, etc.).

Some links for the interested:
http://www.alu.org -- Association of Lisp Users
http://www.paulgraham.com -- Lisp advocate.
http://www.franz.com -- makers of Allegro, Lisp IDE for Unix/Win
http://www.xanalys.com -- makers of LispWorks, IDE for Unix/Win
http://www.digitool.com -- makers of MCL, IDE for Mac.

comp.lang.lisp


Chris Perkins

PhotoWebber Programmer

( My URLs ):
http://www.photowebber.com
http://www.medialab.com
http://www.medialab.com/webmeddler

Actually, one of my favorite linux window managers is built on common lisp. Yes, Lisp is awesome.

I am also a big fan of TeX and TCL