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No computer language is `perfect' for every job, but the essence of Lisp is just so good that it is considered a very important language for a really well-educated computer scientist to know. I guess that's partly why they teach it as a first programming language at places like MIT.
The problems Lisp has are less serious than the problems other languages has. One of the main points in that thread Roshan pointed out is that Lisp is a truly general purpose language. Why doesn't it include a web server or more web interaction functions? Then why not also functions for manipulating genetic information? Whatever is hot is what the current fad language tends to emphasise. But Lisp can and does absorb the best ideas from other languages. It is the 100-year language.
To be able to take advantage of a language that has lost so much mindshare since its heyday in the era when the US National Science Foundation granted lots of money to artificial intelligence research, you'll just have to find out for yourself why many of the smarter crowd (I'm certainly not talking about myself!) still love the language -- and are still learning it.
On a personal note, I want to say that because I learnt Lisp, I could pick up many of the advanced features of Python very quickly. There are many projects that I can do now using Lisp that I wouldn't untertake with any other language, just because of how powerful it is. I don't have to write all the powerful packages for the language: they are getting written quickly by others. There really is quite a lot going on with Lisp. Don't be fooled by the numbers. There is a quite different phenomenon here: many of the very best programmers are working on Lisp libraries such as UCW and many others; they are capable of creating amazingly good libraries without a huge company and millions of dollars to back them up because the language is like sculptors' putty (and because they're a smarter concentration of programmers than you'll probably get to see in one `place').
Just try your own pet project you find interesting; join #lisp and c.l.l. and ask questions politely there; and see where it takes you. Compare that to C! I've got plenty of ideas (and so does lisp-gardeners) if you are at a loss. Try the language to love it. Give it a try for at least 6 months or a year. Spend time with it.
Good luck.
On 5/2/06, Chaitanya Gupta <icehotcg@...> wrote:
Thanks Tom, Roshan. I've read that thread on c.l.l. But a few things
just flew over my head. So I asked here.
Anyway, I think you are right Tom - maybe I should stop worrying so
much about CL's problems. Why worry about them when its so much fun..
On 5/1/06, Roshan Mathews <rmathews@...> wrote:
> On 5/1/06, Thomas Elam <tomelam@...> wrote:
> >
> > I tried to post a link to Pascal C.'s posts in c.l.l., but I got the
> wrong one, so I deleted it.
> >
>
> You should click on the "Show Options" next to the authors name and
> then send us the link to the "Individual Message". :)
>
> --
> Roshan Mathews
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--
Lisp humour:
LISP> (setf god (symbol-value god))
Warning: Declaring GOD special.
Error: GOD is unbound.
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