Lisp AUTOMATICALLY makes me think of Scheme which reminds me of the moment I knew I would not be a software engineer because it was so beautiful yet unattainable for me I could never be great at writing code and thus I “stopped” trying. 

My buddy T. with whom I have long winded conversations on Fridays told me I have “Everest Complex” basically the need to find a bigger mountain to climb a new challenge to overcome, etc… I forgot to mention Scheme and Lisp.

Unfortunately, while programming languages ​​are gaining in sophistication, they are more a reflection of the complexity of human society and the vast world of software applications. Thus, they become huge toolkits, such as garages and attics responsible for more than thirty years of history! In contrast, LISP is a programming language of a great mathematical beauty, he looks more like a surgeon’s scalpel or a diamond honed to a garage in two places crowded with stuff where there remains room for one car.
LISP has a small number of basic concepts, and everything else is built on top of that, which is the way of working mathematicians, that’s what resemble mathematical theories.These theories, good theories are to define some key concepts, and from there the fireworks begin: they reveal new paths, they open the door to radically new worlds. LISP is like that too and it is closer to the math that most programming languages. At least if you eliminate the useful parts that have been added, the additions that have made a practical LISP. What is left if you do this, the original LISP, the conceptual heart of LISP, a heart that is a gem of mathematical beauty and austere intellectual beauty. ” 

Gregory Chaitin

engineering:

John McCarthy, widely considered the father of artificial intelligence, died today. He was 84. John McCarthy perhaps most notably was responsible for creating Lisp, modern programming languages are still trying to catch up.