Comment by dgb23
3 years ago
Lisp is a language family. Popular, well known choices include for example: Common Lisp, Scheme, Racket, Emacs Lisp and Clojure.
There are countless production systems written in these languages, ranging from embedded, to web apps to infrastructure tooling. The specific domains where they're applied, are just as diverse as one could imagine.
The more interesting question is "Why would someone use any of these languages?".
Niche languages are typically associated with risk in the business world. But the thing is that Lisp just keeps surviving, evolving and finding new problems and domains to tackle.
My personal opinion is that these languages represent the powerful combination of freedom, stability and engagement.
A Lisp is inherently non-condescending as it gives you more powerful tools than most other languages, but it's also very reliable because it's built on a very well understood, minimal foundation. Last but not least you are programming in a way that is very engaging. You are right there in the running program.
> A Lisp is inherently non-condescending
My guy, you just didn't answer his question, and then proposed a question you thought was more interesting.
You're right it is a typical case of me trying to give a too general answer but then also getting side-tracked.
Don’t worry any answer gives me a bit more insight, and it was a natural follow up question probably :)
Just never heard of lisp beyond knowing it exists!