newbie LISP question

[Rick Taube]

sorry i dont really have time (desire?) to get into a comparison, but ill
list several reasons why i use it

programs are data in lisp, and can be treated or analyzed just like any
other data.  both clm and cm use a "code walker" that makes use of this
feature. (for example, clm's code walker turns part of what you write into
C. )

lisp makes it easy to write programs that write programs. common music
depends on this ablity. when you define an algorithm you are writing a
program that writes a (new) program each time it runs.

lisp's object system is incredibly powerful and dynamic. gnereric functios
are much more general than message passing, and even method dispatch
(:before :after :around, etc) is at the control of the programmer.

lisp has automatic memory management.

lisp has an interpreter

lisp has lexical closures.

lisp is a standardized language and has free implementations that run on
most machines.

lisp has a (fairly) consistent syntax. its possible to get people up and
running in a few hours time.

---
lisp is a very old language and a number of newer langueages (and operating
systems and computers) have encorporated some or even many of these
features.