Let me try to get this straight: Lisp is a language for describing algorithms. This was JohnMcCarthy's original purpose, anyway: to build something more convenient than a Turing machine. Lisp is not about file, socket or GUI programming - Lisp is about expressive power. (For example, you can design multiple object systems for Lisp, in Lisp. Or implement the now-fashionable AOP. Or do arbitrary transformations on parsed source code.) If you don't value expressive power, Lisp ain't for you. I, personally, would prefer Lisp to not become mainstream: this would necessarily involve a dumbing down. -- VladimirSlepnev

Premature abstraction is an equally grevious sin as premature optimization. -- Keith Devens

Photography is painting with light. -- Eric Hamilton

All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky. -- Joel Spolsky (The Law of Leaky Abstractions)

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -- Benjamin Franklin

It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger Dijkstra

You become what you believe. –Oprah Winfrey

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu

The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family, and neighbors. ~Napoleon Hill

Fortune sides with him who dares. ~Virgil