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
My dream is that people adopt it on its own merits. We're not trying to bend Ruby on Rails to fit the enterprise, we're encouraging enterprises to bend to Ruby on Rails. Come if you like it, stay away if you don't. We're not going head over heels to accommodate the enterprise or to lure them away from Java. That's how you end up with Java, if you start bending to special interest groups. -- David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby On Rails' creator)
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder. -- Erik Naggum
Philosophy: the finding of bad reasons for what one believes by instinct. -- Brave New World (paraphrased)
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. -- Mario Andretti
Simplicity takes effort-- genius, even. -- Paul Graham
Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown
The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. –Mark Twain
Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them. ~Anonymous