Why do autists love lisp?

>just believe me and invest hundreds of hours with no known payoff
cult psychotic autists who can't admit they've wasted their lives

>why do autists love lisp?
It has one unique feature and a history that's easily mythologized.
There are other languages like this. Forth is a very pure example. But most languages have autists.
There are certainly Java autists and Python autists, they just don't stand out as much because those languages have so many more non-autistic users.
>what makes it good?
The syntax is so regular that you can make your own language constructs. This part's basically unique.
It encourages a REPL mode of development where you (re)write your code while it's running. This comes with big advantages and big drawbacks. This is not totally unique, you have something similar in Smalltalk and Jupyter-style notebooks.
It pioneered some features that are now commonplace (particularly in other dynamic languages like Python).
Common Lisp still has a few other features that are conceptually neat but have barely been adopted by other languages. I suspect these features are just not that useful, though they are intellectually satisfying.
>why does nobody use it?
That's a hotly debated topic. My best guess is that the hyped features just don't translate to better outcomes, at least not enough so to attract new users. They might even be detrimental: there is such a thing as too much metaprogramming.

>why do autists love lisp?
It is THE best language that happens to be very unpopular. Autists tend to not care about popularity.
>what makes it good?
LISP is basically the superset of all programming languages.
>why does nobody use it?
Unironically too powerful for it's own good. 1 LISPer an output the same work as 100 Pyjeets or 1000 Cniles, which is really a bad thing from a business perspective. Workers are better fungible and replaceable rather than maximally productive but indispensible. LISP's syntax is also too different from what people are used to.

Why don't you start your own company, surely you must be able to make bank if you can do work of 1000 cniles

>the best language
>((((((((((literally unreadable)))))))))))
Also
>the superset of all programming languages
>implying C is not turing complete
>implying you cannot write a LISP interpreter in C

>why do autists love lisp?
it is mathematically beautiful
>what makes it good?
see above, and also that it’s incredibly easy to write. a problem that would take you an hour to solve in C can be solved in 5 minutes in lisp. also the syntax and keywords are simple (it is not regular, it is at the minimum context-free), so it’s very hard to make syntax errors. plus, it’s implementation is so simple to understand that it’s difficult to make semantic errors.
>why does nobody use it?
no momentum, and people are scared by the prefix notation.

If Lisp is so productive then where's the great Lisp software?
I can't think of a single program I use that's written in Lisp, besides Emacs with its extensions. I love me some Emacs extensions but they're only written in Lisp because they have to be.
Hacker News is written in Lisp but it runs like shit. Guix uses Scheme but it's just a GNUified Nix. Where are the Bellard-tier one-man armies performing miracles with it?

>incredibly easy to write
>implementation is so simple to understand
Let's check quicksort in LISP
(defun quicksort (list &aux (pivot (car list)) )
(if (cdr list)
(nconc (quicksort (remove-if-not #'(lambda (x) (< x pivot)) list))
(remove-if-not #'(lambda (x) (= x pivot)) list)
(quicksort (remove-if-not #'(lambda (x) (> x pivot)) list)))
list))

Let's check it in C
void quicksort(int *A, int len) {
if (len < 2) return;

int pivot = A[len / 2];

int i, j;
for (i = 0, j = len - 1; ; i++, j--) {
while (A[i] < pivot) i++;
while (A[j] > pivot) j--;

if (i >= j) break;

int temp = A[i];
A[i] = A[j];
A[j] = temp;
}

quicksort(A, i);
quicksort(A + i, len - i);
}

The first one is barely understandable and filled with meaningless keywords. The second one is clear as day.

>a problem that would take you an hour to solve in C can be solved in 5 minutes in lisp.
This is true for a lot of languages. Being more productive than C is not hard.
>also the syntax and keywords are simple (it is not regular, it is at the minimum context-free), so it’s very hard to make syntax errors.
Syntax errors are not a significant source of trouble for people who have been programming for more than a week.
>plus, it’s implementation is so simple to understand that it’s difficult to make semantic errors.
In most languages few problems are caused by misunderstanding what the language does. A bigger source of problems is misunderstanding what your own code says.
One good way to prevent semantic errors is heavy-handed static analysis. Lisp does poorly in this area.

It has c++ levels of bloat while having only rudimentary syntax if it's common lisp. Imagine that.

>why does nobody use it?
I'll just leave this here
paulgraham.com/avg.html

>why do autists love lisp?
homoiconicity
>what makes it good?
easy metaprogramming and regular syntax
>why does nobody use it?
every lisp sucks for one reason or another