So, yes, lisp does not HAVE a lot of libraries. But what people miss is that lisp doesn't NEED libraries. Why have a graph library when you can just embed the g

So, yes, lisp does not HAVE a lot of libraries. But what people miss is that lisp doesn't NEED libraries. Why have a graph library when you can just embed the graph naturally in the data? When I wear my Java hat I search for libraries to do what I want. When I wear my lisp hat I simply do what I need. I can't remember when I needed a "library". So, to a lisper, libraries have the flavor of crutches. Having a large set of libraries (crutches) is not a feature. I suppose this makes sense for a guy with his resume: lots of AI and mathematical programming. However, this attitude makes no sense when you're trying to write a rich application with iteration after iteration of adding trivial but laborious features. When you want to add user preferences to a GUI app, you need a dialog box, a backing store, plus all kinds of bells and whistles like an easy way to add validation and tooltips to the preference values, some kind of encryption for passwords, etc. Of course the ideal case is for all this stuff to be written in Lisp and for your application to be written in Lisp, but if the Lisp ethic continues to be "we don't need no stinking libraries," then frameworks written in brain-dead languages like Java will continue to predominate, and we will just have to be happy if there's a Lispy language that integrates well enough to use the framework. (In particular, in Java that means being able to create classes that implement interfaces, and making sure those classes get loaded through the right classloader.)