The Road to Lisp Questions I, Michael Israel, do solemnly offer these my responses to The Road to Lisp Survey: When did you first try Lisp (meaning here and throughout the survey "any member of the Lisp family") seriously, and which Lisp family member was it? Star Saphire Common Lisp in the early 1980s while in High School.
What led you to try Lisp? I wanted to learn about AI and most of the intresting AI programs were written in Lisp.
If you were trying Lisp out of unhappiness with another language, what was that other language and what did you not like about it, or what were you hoping to find different in Lisp? I switched from Basic so any language would be an improvement. In College I learned C/C++/Java/Cobol and understand why Lisp is powerful. The other languages suck by comparison--crash often, generate core dumps, require me to develop flow charts, and declare data types. Lisp was the only language I've used that allows run time editing, and rapid prototyping. I am also thinking of learning Prolog for simular reasons that made me choose to Learn Lisp.
How far have you gotten in your study of Lisp? (I know, that is hard to measure) I am an advanced ameture. Have not written any very big programs.
What do you think of Lisp so far? It's so so cool, and easy to use without the need for alot of planning--I'm surprized that it is not more popular.
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