How common is it in the industry?

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Continued from ChallengeSixLispVersionDiscussion:

Anyhow, the industry keeps voting that the first case list is more readable than the second (and/or more consistent per person), and that is the maintenance audience I target. You want to evangelize the parenthesis approach and change their opinion, be my guest. If you can pull it off, THEN I'll change my style to fit the new maintenance audience transformed by you. Esperanto may be more compact or clean than English, but my audience mostly speaks English such that it's more rational to target them. -t

''I'm not evangelising LISP, just pointing out that you might understand it better if you use it for a while.  That's true of the industry, too.''

It's been around for 50+ years, that's far more chance than anything else. The calendar is your clue club: give it up already. Try techniques in IfFooIsSoGreatHowComeYouAreNotRich instead this time.

''A language that's not just "been around" for 50+ years, but still '''heavily used'''?  That's a successful language by any measure.  Maybe you might want to consider trying it?''

Mostly as a hobbyist language. Anyhow, we've been over its popularity in GreatLispWar. No need to repeat the "popularity fight" here and violate OnceAndOnlyOnce.

''What's a "hobbyist language"?  Do you mean LISP's significant use in the financial trading industry is just a hobby?''

I don't see that it's significant there from Googlin' around, but it's not my specialty. Perhaps its useful for throw-away RAD where concern about future maintenance costs is not a key factor (see HackerLanguage).

''It's useful for throw-away RAD, but also for long-term systems where the development team is expected to know LISP.  There is a '''much''' broader development world out there than the one you know.''

I never disputed pocket niches existed. I just see no evidence of high aggregate Lisp demand. Hell, there's probably a BrainFsck shop somewhere out there also. Sometimes the language is chosen because it turned out to be a good fit, and sometimes out of happenstance, such as the owner's son pushing it just because he/she knows it, and it becomes the org standard for good or bad.

''No one is claiming "evidence of high aggregate Lisp demand".  I suppose there might be instances of LISP (or anything else) being chosen because of nepotism, but that is hardly typical.''
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''About as common as Esperanto.''

{No, more common than that.  It's actually quite common in niche areas and industries: speciality in-house applications, code generators, stock trading, financial analysis, semantic tools (see, for example, OpenCyc), embedded languages in in-house products, etc.  Is LISP mainstream?  Not really.  Is it as common as C# and Java?  Not a chance.  Is it used heavily?  Depends how you define "heavily", but it's perhaps the most common speciality, general-purpose domain-specific language.  See the TiobeIndex.}

OpenCyc started with the AiBubble of the 80's, of which Lisp was part of.

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See Also: TiobeIndex, IfFooIsSoGreatHowComeYouAreNotRich
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CategoryLisp