Re: Ghosts in the machine
All (untyped) languages aspire to the condition of Lisp.
Historically I'd say that Lisp was the test bed in which we as a profession worked out exactly what the hell it was we were actually doing when we designed and used computer languages. If you look at all the debates which came up in the Lisp community - scope, dynamic vs static binding, downwards funargs, upwards funargs, closures, single vs dual namespaces, continuations, macro hygiene, message sending, purely functional vs stateful programming - they reflected design and implementation choices that occur in all languages, but which could be tested rapidly in Lisp because it is such a simple and flexible language. As such it's in many ways the Ur-language from which all other languages have sprung even if it's always been a minority sport in real world use.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
