> will evolve to the point where someone builds a (often vaguely Lisp-like) scripting language No, that's not what it is about. It's not about programs needing

> will evolve to the point where someone builds a (often vaguely Lisp-like) scripting language No, that's not what it is about. It's not about programs needing a scripting language. It's about the program (its framework, libraries, architecture, ...) itself. It will acquire features like: * late binding * symbols * dynamic data structures * serialization format * a plugin architecture with loading of code * advanced error handling * first class function objects * automatic memory management * specialized numeric datatypes (large integers, ...) * a dynamic object system * more... The implementation language will be extended by some framework, software layers, libraries with such features ... so that over time it will implement many of the standard features of Common Lisp Note that platforms like the JVM, .net and others nowadays provide many of that (and much more). Also language on top of those do: Java/Scala/... See for example how for Java dynamic loading of code has been implemented on top of custom class loaders.