> LISP seems rather baroque... I'm not sure baroque is the right word for LISP. I'd consider C++ and Perl to be baroque and LISP quite lean in comparison regarding syntacic complexity.
> The only reason I can think of for the lack of popularity is that LISP got > a reputation for being slow back when cpu time was expensive and C and > other imperative languages took over all of the mindshare. I've been wondering that myself. The way I understand it, according to Andy and others, is that LISP trades slighly increased complexity relative to Python for supreme Jedi powers that you won't find anywhere else... namely something called 'macros'. (No I don't mean #define type macros like in C... Those are similar in /name/ only.) More people quickly adopted Python and related languages because they were butt easy to learn. This led to better standard libraries which made Python even easier/better which led to more libraries/mind share, yada yada. The only person who would look at LISP is likely a programming nut like me who wants to do lots of extra work to get that extra little productivity boost.... most just want an 80% solution for 20% of the work. Chris -- KPLUG-List mailing list [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
