> My theory, completely made up and untested, is that these powerful Lisp/Smalltalk systems weave code and brains together in a way that amplifies both. It’s ve

> My theory, completely made up and untested, is that these powerful Lisp/Smalltalk systems weave code and brains together in a way that amplifies both. It’s very organic, very hard to document, and thus it becomes very hard to absorb new brains into the system. < Here's a simpler and less mystical theory. These programming systems are fundamentally image-based, and much of their leverage comes from the coder's ability to leverage all aspects of the meta-system. However, the more the core image is evolved the easier it is for a team to get out of sync. This is the ultimate namespace clash. A slew of other highly-productive languages share this feature, e.g., APL and Forth.