I, anonymous user?, do solemnly offer these my responses to The Road to Lisp Survey:
When did you first try Lisp seriously, and which Lisp family member was it?
2007, Common Lisp.
Many of us had multiple run-ins with Lisp before it "stuck". The "stick" date is of most interest, but you can share earlier encounters if you like.
What led you to try Lisp?
The free online book "Practical Common Lisp"What other languages have you been using most?
C++ How far have you gotten in your study of Lisp?
I know this is hard to quantify. Just wing it.
What do you think of Lisp so far?
Lisp's eternal problem is its user base. Experienced users are needlessly hostile to new users, generally responding to queries with a response in the form "You clearly have a failure of reasoning that is so obvious that it is beneath me to point out what or where it is." Like art imitating life, the compiler error messages are also in this form. At least C++ template errors aren't condescending to you.Lisp users also tend to think systems that need instructions like this are sane, and there is no reasoning with them:
"(1) Click here to view the questions (this page) in 'source' form. (2) Select all, then copy. (3) In the Search box at the top right of this page, type in: "John McCarthy's Road to Lisp" (no quotes, and use YOUR REAL NAME, please, and no dots after any initials). Then hit "Go". When the "not found" page appears, click "create" to create the new page. (4) Paste the contents copied in Step 2 into the body of the page. (5) Add your name (the same spelling) to the first sentence and write a nice sound bite since that will appear as the page synopsis everywhere, but somewhere in the body leave the star-RTL bit from the suggested first line, cuz that does important linking. (6) Answer each question, deleting any italicized clarifications as you go. By the way, if you do not like the questions, delete them and write what you like. (7) Delete all but the relevant cross-reference links at the bottom. (8) Delete these instructions. "
What kind of web page search has a 'Search' and a 'Go' button? If you think this question has a good answer, you are part of the problem.
Sadly, the problem of Lisp's users totally overwhelms Lisp's clear technical merits. Those who are not repelled by the frustrations of getting up and running are likely to be repelled by the users. C# and Java forums are (relatively) a mine of useful information provided by people helping each other to get the job done. Lisp discussions, when you can find them, are full of the kind of people who provide sample code that erases your drive if they feel your question is unworthy. Even worse, some of them seem to look forward to these opportunities.
It is also worth mentioning the tools. Turbo C 2.0 in the late 80s was an environment to have fun in. Even old versions of VB let you get stuff done and modify code at run time. SLIME, once you get it up and running, feels like you stumbled into a trap set by nerds to exact revenge for a thousand lifetimes of bullying. Life is too short to spend stuck inside this variant of the 'get the Babel Fish from the machine' part of the HHGTTG game.
Please delete all but one of these cross-referencing tags: Switch Date 2006
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