I don't think you should choose the tool before you know the problem. Computer programming is a pretty vast domain. Lisp was probably a good tool for pg's star

I don't think you should choose the tool before you know the problem. Computer programming is a pretty vast domain. Lisp was probably a good tool for pg's startup. It was an ecommerce builder, most lisps are great at metaprogramming and creating DSL's. But his startup also used C and some other languages for different problems. What I think is great about Lisp is its idealistic simplicity. (function parameter1 parameter2) Everything is a list, pretty much everything that doesn't look like a list is just syntax sugar. My opinion is: unless you have a hard requirement, just use the language you already know and like. If you need to squeeze every tiny bit of performance, you might just need to use C++ or C. If your client wants a complete website in a ridiculous short amount of time, going for python,ruby or even php would be a sane choice. If your problem involves DSL's, metaprogramming or impressing people with how alien your code looks, check out some lisps, maybe Haskell.