I, Chris Smith, 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? Tried GNU CLISP in the summer of 2007.
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.

I first got interested in Lisp about 2002 or so, but it took until 2006 to really try it. But it was so different that it really did take some time to understand *how* to code in Lisp. I naturally thought I was the Jedi master of code, since I started coding at the age of 9 in 1981 and have basically been doing it all my life since. My real conversion to Lsip worked like this: I figured that Lisp itself was just too big and bloated, and seemed to work in silly ways. Since I kinda saw the logic in the simple syntax, I'd thought I'd write my own Lisp-like language (I like writing new languages :) ). However, the more I coded and the more I researched, the more I realised that the Lisp way was the best way, and that I was writting a slow, buggy, incomplete version of CLisp. I've never looked back since that time...

What led you to try Lisp?

Always been interested in computer languages. I used assembly and C for a very long period, but then started (late nineties) to use a lot more scripting languages (Perl and Python, mainly). I read a few pieces about how Python can be a little bit Lispy. This interested me enough to do 'apt-get install clisp'. If I'd have known how much effort I had to put in - like learning Emacs properly - for a start - maybe I wouldn't have gone down that route.

What other languages have you been using most?

Where do I start? BASIC in the early eighties. Quickly moved to assembly (Z80, 6502/6510, 680x0, 80x86) then met Pascal, C and C++ at uni. At work, used Java, Perl and Python. Learnt a few others in my spare time. Used to love C, but now I tend to use Python at work (who rreally needs the speed nowadays?).

How far have you gotten in your study of Lisp?
I know this is hard to quantify. Just wing it.

I'm still a novice, but can now tell when the code looks bad. It always amuses me when I can go over a 3 or 4 line piece of code and reduce it to 1 line with a bit of Lispy thinking. I'm confident enough in Lisp to tackle any problem, given enough time.

What do you think of Lisp so far?

I'm in love! Seriously, this language has been around since the fifties and I waited this long? Well, there are some bad points. Don't know anybody who uses it (except online). Pretty much forced to use Emacs. Have to re-learn a bunch of libs. Basically it's a bit left-field, and perhaps seen as a bit oddball. Then again, I feel a proper hacker when people ask what I develop in ;-)

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Switch Date 2006

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