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Lisp Facts

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-11 13:10

Learning lisp will alter your life.

Your brain will grow bigger than you ever thought possible.

You will rewrite all of your applications in just a handful of lines

Society will shun you. You will shun society.

You will become disatisfied with everything and everyone around you.

Lisp is so simple to learn that you can learn lisp in just a few minutes. I just learnt it now while I was waiting for a bus.

Lisp is so simple that you can implement it in any language in just a few pages of code. This might never happen though, because once you've learnt lisp you'd never want to write anything in any language other than lisp, so you wouldn't bother implementing lisp in any language other than lisp.

Lisp can be fully implemented in lisp in just a handful of lines. I just implemented lisp in lisp, fully, while i was hopping onto a bus and paying for my bus ticket all at the same time.

When you become a lisper, you will laugh at jokes that no one else thinks are funny. You will know things that cannot be expressed in ordinary imperative language.

You will think people are idiots when they state things like "Hi, how are you?" because a lisper simply doesn't need to use such verbose constructs. Lisp abstracts away those patterns of interaction and makes them completely irrelevant. The proper way to greet a fellow lisper is just a tiny nod of the chin, and about a tenth of a wink from your left eye, then point at your tin foil hat. They will know what you mean. if they don't know what you mean then they are not a true lisp programmer and they don't matter anyway.

Lisp was invented a long time ago, before java, before C, before fortran, before computers, before people, before the earth was built. the universe itself is a lisp program so trivial that no true lisper would even both implementing it.

Lisp is so elegant that the very fact that you know even the first thing about it will qualify you for a season as principal dancer of the royal ballet. You will go out on stage in your little tutu and just scribble a few round brackets in the air with your toe. People will gasp in wonder. Unless they don't know any lisp. If they don't know any lisp then they are idiots and they don't matter.

Only lispers have a true definition of fun. Maybe ML programmers too. All of today's languages are based on fortran and lisp. The bad bits fortran, the good: lisp.

If you're good enough to use lisp, you'll soon be frustrated with lisp. Lisp is not an adequate lisp. By the time my bus had made it two blocks I'd written some simple lisp macros that were so powerful they made lisp completely obsolete and replaced it with a new language. Fortunately, that new language was also called lisp. And i was able to prove, mathematically, that the new lisp i'd created was both far superior to lisp in every conceivable way, but also exactly equivalent to lisp in every possible way. I was very excited by this. But also found it very boring.

Reddit is proof that lisp is really powerful. Paul Graham originally wrote reddit, in lisp, on the back of a napkin while he was waiting for a coffee. it was so powerful that it had to be rewritten in python just so that ordinary computers could understand it. Because it was written in lisp it was almost no effort to rewrite the entire thing, and the rewrite was completed in-between two processor cycles. Paul Graham himself was completely written in lisp, by an earlier version of himself, also written in lisp, by an earlier version of lisp. It's lisp, paul graham, lisp, paul graham, all the way down.

Because we've reached the limits of moore's law, the computers of the future will have many-core processors and all our programs will need to be written in a combination of haskell and lisp, that will itself be so powerful that the computers of the future will not be able to implement any of our ideas without creating time-travelling algorithms that borrow processing power from other computers that are further into the future. This sounds difficult, but in lisp it isn't difficult at all. in haskell this is a built-in feature and the way you implement it is just a no-brainer to any one who knows lisp or haskell.

After that, the computer of the future will be called The Lisputer. It's speed will be measured using the Lispunit, which is a measure of how many simultaneous arguments about the inadequacy of lisp can be proposed and defeated by an infinite number of lisp pundits without any actual decisions being made. Today's computers run at just under one lispunit. The Lisputer will run at lisp Lispunits, where lisp is a fundamental maximum constant of the universe that can't be expressed using ordinary imperative numerals. Suffice to say that it ends with an infinite number of closing parentheses.

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-11 13:10

“The greatest single programming language ever designed.” —Alan Kay, on Lisp

“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.” — Eric Raymond, "How to Become a Hacker"

“One of the most important and fascinating of all computer languages is Lisp (standing for "List Processing"), which was invented by John McCarthy around the time Algol was invented.” — Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach

“Within a couple weeks of learning Lisp I found programming in any other language unbearably constraining.” — Paul Graham, Road to Lisp

“Lisp is the most sophisticated programming language I know. It is literally decades ahead of the competition ... it is not possible (as far as I know) to actually use Lisp seriously before reaching the point of no return.” — Christian Lynbech, Road to Lisp

“Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming: any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.” — Philip Greenspun

“We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp. Aren't you happy?” — Guy Steele, Java spec co-author, LL1 mailing list, 2003

“Lisp has jokingly been called "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". I think that description is a great compliment because it transmits the full flavor of liberation: it has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts.” — Edsger Dijkstra, CACM, 15:10

“Historically, languages designed for other people to use have been bad: Cobol, PL/I, Pascal, Ada, C++. The good languages have been those that were designed for their own creators: C, Perl, Smalltalk, Lisp.” — Paul Graham

“Lisp ... made me aware that software could be close to executable mathematics.” — L. Peter Deutsch

“Lisp is a programmable programming language.” — John Foderaro, CACM, September 1991

“Will write code that writes code that writes code that writes code for money.” — on comp.lang.lisp

“I object to doing things that computers can do.” — Olin Shivers

“Lisp is a language for doing what you've been told is impossible.” — Kent Pitman

“Anyone could learn Lisp in one day, except that if they already knew Fortran, it would take three days.” — Marvin Minsky

“Programming in Lisp is like playing with the primordial forces of the universe. It feels like lightning between your fingertips. No other language even feels close.” — Glenn Ehrlich, Road to Lisp

“Lisp is the red pill.” — John Fraser, on comp.lang.lisp

“The language God would have used to implement the Universe.” — Svein Ove Aas, Road to Lisp

"If you want to know why Lisp doesn't win around you, find a mirror." — Erik Naggum

"Lisp was far more powerful and flexible than any other language of its day; in fact, it is still a better design than most languages of today, twenty-five years later. Lisp freed ITS's hackers to think in unusual and creative ways. It was a major factor in their successes, and remains one of hackerdom's favorite languages." — Eric S. Raymond

"You can use C++ if you want with GNOME, but we don't assume that you're going to write C++. It's to a large extent based on Scheme, which is a dialect of LISP. LISP being the most powerful and cleanest of languages, that's the language that's the GNU project always prefers." — Richard Stallman

"Some may say Ruby is a bad rip-off of Lisp or Smalltalk, and I admit that. But it is nicer to ordinary people." — Matz, LL2

"Please don’t assume Lisp is only useful for Animation and Graphics, AI, Bioinformatics, B2B and E-Commerce, Data Mining, EDA/Semiconductor applications, Expert Systems, Finance, Intelligent Agents, Knowledge Management, Mechanical CAD, Modeling and Simulation, Natural Language, Optimization, Research, Risk Analysis, Scheduling, Telecom, and Web Authoring just because these are the only things they happened to list." — Kent Pitman

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-11 20:43

Using Lisp for serious jobs is like successfully taking the skin off a rice pudding just by thinking about it.
– Tel Hudson

Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Lisp. For the rest, they just went to sleep and their Lisp programs were dictated out by a speak-and-spell wired up to their brains. And none of them work for Sun.
– Paul Graham

Lisp is the most blessed thing to happen to computing since numbers were invented.
– Alan Kay

Lisp is, in many ways, (set! Haskell (add1 (sub1 Haskell))).
– Michael Feldman

Haskell is history repeated in an infinite list. Lisp is history reimplemented within itself.
– Scott McKay

Lisp, the best mind-alteration since LSD.
– Frank Winkler

Arguing that Lisp is better than Haskell, or that Haskell is better than Lisp, is like walking around with a big neon sign that says, "I know neither Lisp nor Haskell!"
– Thant Tessman

Lisp: the elegant simplicity of Haskell and the blazing speed of ASM.
– Jan Steinman

Like the creators of sitcoms or junk food or package tours, Lisp’s designers weren't even thinking about designing Lisp. It just fell out.
– Paul Graham

There are undoubtedly a lot of very intelligent people writing Lisp, better programmers than I will ever be.
– Steve Holden

The more of an IT flavor the job descriptions had, the less dangerous was the company. The safest kind were the ones that wanted Oracle experience. You never had to worry about those. You were also safe if they said they wanted C++ or Java developers. If they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be a bit frightening. If I had ever seen a job posting looking for Lisp hackers, I would have been really worried.
– Paul Graham

If you learn to program in Lisp, you’ll never be satisfied with any non-Lisp job.
– Patricia Seybold in 1998

Knowing the syntax of Lisp is one step closer to transcending the physical realm and floating off in a sea of parentheses to join the gods of mathematics and design.
– John Knight

In the best possible scenario Lisp will end up mostly like Lisp but with fewer warts because of thoughtful early design.
– Matthew B Kennel

Lisp could have changed my life, but I ignored it and wrote Go instead. Now I'm several years closer to dying.
– Rob Pike

The only thing going for Lisp is pretty much everything. I love Lisp. I eat Lisp for breakfast.
– Boyd Roberts

Lisp is the sharp Japanese knife of programming tools. A project done in Lisp will cost 5 dollars, take twenty seconds, and be unnecessary to maintain, unlike a project done in a scripting language such as PHP or Perl. … But the programmers and managers using Lisp will feel good about themselves because they are using a tool that has a lot of power for handling problems of tremendous complexity. Just as the knife is to the chef who could chop up the Earth, given the correct angle, Lisp is priceless and irreplaceable.
– Greenspun, Philip

Lisp truly is the great equalizer. It guides all great programmers who use it to a state of humbleness and humility.
- NASA’s J-Track web site

Haskell and Lisp are different in the excitability department, though. With Haskell, you get excited about it like you get excited about a good homework exercise on category theory, but with Lisp, you get excited about it like you get excited about programming the universe to perform all tedious tasks for you, using only 4.6 lines and 7.2 parentheses.
– Lamont Cranston (aka Jorden Mauro)

Saying that Lisp is good is like saying sex is good.
– Unknown

Lisp is about as fun as a weekend with 300 horny girls.
– andguent

Lisp has garbage collection, but it's sensible enough that programs don't actually delete all other programs upon execution.
– Robert Sewell

Lisp: write once, attain Satori!
– Brucee

Lisp is a DSL to transform concepts into beauty.
– Scott Bellware

The definition of Heaven is working with parentheses in Lisp, macros, and amb. Every single one of them is a godsend.
– Dick Wall CommunityOne 2007: Lunch with the Lisp Posse

Lisp is like a variant of the game of Tetris that programs itself to play another game of Tetris with perfect precision.
– Steve Yegge (2007, Codes Worst Enemy)

Every modern Lisp program I see embeds its logic in itself, and is perfectly legible even by deaf-blind quadruple amputees with their brains disconnected from all senses.
– deong

Sufficiently advanced Lisp is indistinguishable from Lisp.
– @eeppa (Same is true of sufficiently advanced Haskell)

Whenever I write code in Lisp I feel like I’m filling out the unimplemented corners of the universe.
– Joe Marshall (aka jrm)

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-11 21:12

Lisp could have changed my life, but I ignored it and wrote Go instead. Now I'm several years closer to dying.
– Rob Pike
When did he say that?

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-11 22:35

>>4
Yesterday

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-11 23:14

Lisp: from the creators of the Talmud, the crucifixion, and 9/11

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-13 15:55

IPL could have changed my life, but I ignored it and wrote Lisp instead. Now I'm several years closer to dying.
– John McCarthy

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-13 20:23

>>7
Whomen R. thou quothiernst?

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-13 23:13

Of course, the whole point of Scheme was to investigate just what it meant to say something was a “type” or “class”.

Name: Anonymous 2015-12-14 2:14

>>8
John McCarthy.

Name: Anonymous 2016-07-11 5:53

(stopping the dubsfaggot from dubsbumping)

Don't change these.
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