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Why don't people like lisp?

Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters mertz at gnosis.cx
Sat Oct 18 12:20:25 EDT 2003 
Kenny Tilton <ktilton at nyc.rr.com> wrote previously:
|People don't like Lisp because of misconceptions, and threads like that
|help dispel those.

In my own mind, the biggest impediment to really liking Lisp is not the
annoying parentheses and awful syntax... it's many Lispers (especially
those like Tilton).

As soon as I try to learn more by reading discussions, I am bombarded
with weirdly fanatical (and very long) posts that are overwrought with
many misrepresentations (e.g.  Python has "Lisp DNA", when pointedly it
does not by GvR's indication).  Not that different Lispers even bother
with the same misrepresentations--just so long as they are clear that
programmers of all other languages are ignorant and stupid.

Or tortured threads about things that are only possible in Lisp... but
as soon as any example is presented, it is obvious that the same thing
is not only possible, but much easier and more direct, in (some) other
languages.  Then special pleading accompanies the weaknesses of doing
something in Lisp:  you have to use some other distribution (maybe a
really expensive commercial one); if only you wrote these difficult and
huge macros it would be easy; you don't -have- to use the syntax since
the semantics is abstract; you shouldn't want to do -that-, but rather
this other thing; etc.

Yours, Lulu...

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