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Lisp

  • Created by John McCarthy in 1960

  • The "list" data structure is used for code AND data

  • Developed for artificial intelligence at MIT

  • Lisp = "LISt Processing"

  • Lisp = "Lost Ina Seaof Parentheses"

  • Lisp = "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parenthesis"

Qualities

  • Functional; that is, "uses functions"
  • Code is data
  • Recursive
    • recursion preferred to looping
    • the language can be implemented in itself
  • Dialects
    • Lisp comes in many similar (yet slightly different) flavors
    • Lisp 1.5, MacLisp, Interlisp
    • Scheme, Common Lisp, Clojure, Emacs Lisp

Features Pioneered

  • Conditionals
  • A function type
  • Recursion
  • Variables as pointers
  • Garbage-collection
  • Read-evaluate-print loop (REPL)

Why Learn It?

"Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot."

Functional languages influence modern mainstream languages (Perl, JavaScript, Python and Ruby all have functional influence). Can teach you new ways to do things in your everyday work.

Lisp is a secret weapon. In the hands of Paul Graham, he grew Viaweb eStore internet startup to 1070 stores.

To customize Emacs!!