1. I don't think so. I've used Newlisp and it behaves like your regular dynamically typed language. 2. This question reduces to static versus dynamic typing.

1. I don't think so. I've used Newlisp and it behaves like your regular dynamically typed language. 2. This question reduces to static versus dynamic typing. 3. It is dynamic scoping. As a Forth lover - Forth which sacrifices everything including types for efficiency and simplicity - I find Newlisp quite impressive: it is on the same order of magnitude as Lua size-wise (speed-wise it is more like Python according to some old benchmarks), but includes a ton of interesting functions and features where Lua is just bare-bone. Also the fact that it operates without a GC and without requiring manual memory management is quite a feat, even if it has some downsides. The real weakness of Newlisp to me - if you can get over dynamic scope and typing - is its poor error reporting and debugging support. Even with all its problems, IMO Newlisp is a good "hacker's language". Small, not too slow, flexible, good standard library, runs anywhere (I've compiled it for an embedded platform running uClinux).