Lisp is old and it's unlikely that you see hype anytime soon. But you can see that Lisp derived languages like Clojure can generate minor hypes. Other new langu

Lisp is old and it's unlikely that you see hype anytime soon. But you can see that Lisp derived languages like Clojure can generate minor hypes. Other new languages may even contain substantial pieces of Lisp influence. Examples would be Julia or R. Generally the industry has problems reusing old/existing technology. See for example the Javascript domain, where new frameworks for web development pop up every week and the lifespan of frameworks is measured in months. Instead of using/enhancing existing tools, there is a constant pressure to develop new stuff. Or take Apple with Swift. Instead of using Scala, Standard ML, OCAML, F# or Haskell, they developed a new statically-typed functional language. It's the NIH syndrome at work. Everywhere. But it's also that tools are complex to learn, so people start new with simpler tools, they grow over time and after some time they are replaced with other stuff. If something gets updated in some incompatible ways, it already causes problems: some users are lost, some users will only use the old stuff, some only the latest stuff and some will try to use multiple versions. See Python. Full Common Lisp is just too complex for most developers, but it has a life in many specialised and niche applications: CAD, some AI tools, music, robots (like the Roomba), planning/scheduling (crews, telescopes, ...), Expert Systems, verification of software and hardware, some maths stuff, ... Since Lisp is only left being taught at a few universities, there are not many people able to develop with it. Even when it was taught, it was often only used to teach concepts like recursion and not programming. The younger Lisp programmers found it by themselves. 'Industry' sometimes often has no interest to diversify their programming tools. Many enterprise software shops currently (still) use Java: standardised, broad industry support, ... You won't successfully propose to them to use Lisp, even if the application would be better in some way. For example if the project fails, it certainly wasn't Java fault, because all the others are using it too. If you would use Lisp and the project would fail, it would be Lisp's problem: not enough people, little architecture experience, tools not broad enough, integration story too weak etc... Even it would be successful and in production, there would be a lot of pressure to rewrite it in some industry standard in the next product iteration. > "if it was the best - as claimed - then there would be a buzz around Common LISP, because huge numbers of people would be using it" There is no general 'best'. It's all relative to a domain, community, demands, legacy, fashion/hype, ... Lisp is not more dead than usual. Yesterday there was a donation effort started for the Quicklisp library manager and it's now at $16606.37 .