You try to make interesting points, but let me give you some indicative examples: - C has a very strong community, and people who don't like C go out there and

You try to make interesting points, but let me give you some indicative examples: - C has a very strong community, and people who don't like C go out there and create their own dialects or substitutes (like Go) without constantly harassing on each other. I won't go as far as saying nobody would insult me there as you're doing here, but at least there's some mutual respect that is driven by the interest for the language. The same could be said for the Python or Ruby (and no, I haven't decided and I won't, I use the right tool for the job) communities, but I have not had that experience with Lisp/Clojure/Scheme fans. - The various communities around Linux distributions similarly bash on each other, but thankfully I'm not in as much of a loss there as I were back in high school with no clue about what Lisp even was. I can safely ignore their rants because in that context, I can judge for myself. When it comes to Lisp dialects, I don't know my way around and the community made it hard for me to learn anything concrete. See, in many a case, it is difficult to get into a discussion without encountering some bizarre religious argument about "which shell do you use" or "why not C++?", similar to several recurring themes here in HN (see the recent "C is a macro assembler" arguments). Not only are such arguments unhelpful, but they're a waste of time for anyone who wants to delve into a subject. While the above may be anecdotal evidence drawn from personal experience, I see others share my view, and I don't believe in coincidence.