Take the Pebble From My Hand

2010-02-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

Lisp was one of the first computer languages, conceived around the time the Soviet Union put Sputnik into orbit. According to many well-known developers, including ESR, Paul Graham, and Richard Stallman, it is the most elegant programming language. The claim is that every programmer should learn it because it will make them a better software developer even if they don't use it for their day job.

I'm not a Lisp programmer, but a lowly grasshopper who's pondering if he should try to take the pebble from their hands. For me, much of what makes a language interesting is the ability to solve "real" problems in my day job. The language needs tool support, libraries, and sufficient performance. Years ago I settled on Perl being the most useful language, and it kind of still is. However, it has lost much of its momentum. Nothing beats CPAN, but Python now has lots of libraries, and they are doing a much better job of fixing the warts in the language. Now that Ruby and Python both run on the Java JVM, making them both even more attractive. I hear Ruby is cool but it has gained little acceptance outside of Rails community. The performance of JavaScript is impressive, and getting better. Someday Google is going to turn it into a winner. The creator of JavaScript actually wrote it in Common Lisp and gave it a Lisp like flavor. He was forced to make it more Java like for marketing reasons.

It seems like every language is trying to be like Lisp. I'm not sure if I'll find enlightenment, but I'm going to head out in whatever direction I feel like and see what's out there.

Let's go walkabout!

A Lisp Walkabout

Take the Pebble From My Hand