Two things: 1) "X is good for Y" is very much not the same thing as "X is best for Y" 2) One person having great success at something is not a pattern, and do

Two things: 1) "X is good for Y" is very much not the same thing as "X is best for Y" 2) One person having great success at something is not a pattern, and doesn't usually prove a general rule (I'm hedging with 'usually' - I can't think of a counter example but I expect someone else will :-). Common usage, while not a guarantee, is at least a good indicator of fitness - if Java were better for systems programming than C, it's likely (though of course not certain) that we would be saying 'Java is best for systems programming', and have some basis for that claim beyond the success of one person who has already demonstrated competence in the same general area (i.e. the contests previous competition wins). The headline might better have been "Experienced programmer uses Lisp to win Google AI contest". Correlation vs causation - he didn't win because he knew Lisp, but he did use Lisp in his winning solution, and you can understand that without taking a position on Lisp itself; there are shades of fanboism in some of the comments on this thread.