Ok well I have recently got back into programming and I'm going to be taking up Lisp and C++ (sadly .net )
and I was discussion as such with my dad, who is an IT manager and is very Into windows (maybe to much) although he did introduce me to linux at a young age (windows 2000 dual boot )

He said that there isnt much commercial use for lisp,
and that if I was to write two identical programs in two different languages one may be accepted over the other based on the language it was written in.
These of course were not his exact words but the 'gist' of it.

How true would you say this is?

He continued to argue the point that a consumer would prefer a application implimented in the same language they are used to and that is made mainly for their OS (windows)

I recently wrote a VBA spreadsheet consolidation, and according to him if i had wrote the same thing in something such as lisp he may have not wanted it.

any comments?

Thanks again, Ducky

true, there is not much commercial use for lisp.
That doesn't make it less valid as a brain tool however.
Knowledge is power and the different way of thinking used with
lisp is liberating. You can do things in lisp that a VB boy couldn't even spell.

As a programming language it is pure and beatiful. More people in the world listen
to Madonna and Britney Spears so therefore is Mozart no longer valid?

It just so happens it's easier for college to churn out below average conveyor belt java or VB programmers than good lisp programmers.




I work and use mainly shell scripting and perl, with a little C on occasion.
I love lisp the best though.

better still - try them all and make your own mind up.

I'm guessing you are talking about software products which are shipped in binary+source form; and that the consumer has programming experience. Well I suppose it all depends on the consumer. Some might have no programming skills at all in which case I doubt your choice of programming language will be of any interest to them; *or* you might not be distributing the source (let's not get all philosophical about this being a good or a bad thing) which, this time, *forces* the consumer not to care about your choice of prog. lang.

As for the OS I found the affirmation obvious. Who would want to change their OS just to run *your* software. Surely somebody else out there is willing to make a similar product *for their operating system* and possibly for less money.

I suppose one way of fixing things like this is trying to appeal to customers who work with *your* OS of choice. Or working for a company which specifically provides solutions for Linux/BSD/whatever you like.

In the event that your father knows VBA and has limited (including 0) knowledge of LISP I can totally understand why. Like this, he can modify your program in order to tweak it/improve it/shorten it, basically: modify it, in time, in order for the software to evolve with his evolving needs.

I suppose this comes from the fact that the student mass includes all sorts of individuals, with greatly varying intellectual abilities and interest degrees. Unfortunately teachers usually have to adapt to the "lowest common denominator" of the mass.

thanks for your replies.

I of course am still going to pursue lisp simply because I realise its potential.

When I consumer's I should have put 'employers'

my dad was a BASIC programmer in his day so he can understand SOME VB.

I understand his view on HIM preffering me learn .net (VB being his first choice and C++ 2nd) but isnt it more or less the end result, in this case being the application, that would count?

and if i was to use lisp 'commerically' I'm sure I could get it to churn out .exe's in one way or another.

If I continue my plans to learn C++.net along with lisp, would it make it easier for me to pick up common C++ later on? as in are C++ and C++.net THAT different, sure there are libraries and some functions added and taken out but is the difference that great?

Because I would really like to be able to use my programming in both windows and 'nix, 'nix because its MY OS and windows because that (sadly) is where about 80% of desktops are at.


It still annoys me though to some great extent that if i was to learn python instead of C++ that may change my future career options to some extent.

But of course I wont stop at just a few languages, have to know altest a dozen or so

thanks all, Ducky

If you want to get a job as a programmer, then you need to know at least some of the langs that the employer already uses, otherwise they won't hire you.
See any programmer job desc; must have langs x,y,z pref also a,b,c.
OTOH, if you want to write SW and sell binaries only it doesn't matter so long as it runs on the target HW/OS.
However, some buyers may insist on src code (or in escrow) as well in case you go broke etc, in which case they'll likely prefer a lang they can understand (if they have their own prog team).