Lisp is Sin

Just a post I saw that I thought was interesting:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sriram/archive/2006/01/15/lisp_is_sin.aspx

Thinking about my response to this essay (and many others I've seen in
the last year or so), I would put it this way: Lisp has convinced many
people of its beauty and power, but has convinced few of its
practicality as a primary development tool for the here and now. I
guess you could look at that glass as being half-full or half-empty.

Where I work, I think it is more likely that we will add Ruby to the
toolkit than Lisp, mostly because
1) it appears to be easier for average developers to get started in
Ruby
2) the price is right; as a non-profit institution, commercial Lisps
seem kind of expensive.
3) the general consensus is that the Ruby community is friendlier and
more likely to offer constructive help.

That makes me sad, since I like Lisp, but I have to admit that I agree
with all three points. Am I missing some compelling counter-argument?

All roads may lead to Lisp, but maybe not any existing Lisp.
--
adamnospamaustin.rr.com
s/nospam/c\./
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Lisp on Lines
    ... and Lisp AFAIK has functions not ... Ruby has both methods and functions, ... def + ...
    (comp.lang.ruby)
  • Re: Best unix programming language or tool for dealing with plaintext DBs?
    ... > I appreciate the concision of Ruby. ... Lisp is designed to process easily lists of symbols. ... > input data with the internal data structures is less important because ... # Print the books owned by Bob but not by Jack. ...
    (comp.unix.programmer)
  • Re: Best unix programming language or tool for dealing with plaintext DBs?
    ... >> I plan to learn both perl, php, and ruby, and also lisp, scheme, guile ... A perl solution won't be much longer here's a ruby ... It would be nearly as short with SCSH (which has an awk makro for such ...
    (comp.unix.programmer)
  • Re: A "killer" macro
    ... Or perhaps Lisp doesn't have one thing ultra- ... But it's true because of macros. ... indistinguishable from native Lisp - extend the language itself. ... Ruby is totally inefficient (besides what is implemented ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Re: Is Lisp ready to become popular?
    ... the lack of "standard" networking libraries and the like, the fact that free Lisps depend on Emacs as an editor and Emacs is _not_ the default editor of many developers, the unfortunate fact that Lisp syntax is so obviously different. ... It's generating a fair amount of conversation in the Java community. ... Tate is clearly impressed by Ruby, but he dismisses Lisp's chances based on its "history and reputation to overcome". ... or in a programming language ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
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