I am no lisp expert, and I'm well aware of the legendary cloud of terror and harshness which is said to hover on comp.lang.lisp. However, by lurking there for a

I am no lisp expert, and I'm well aware of the legendary cloud of terror and harshness which is said to hover on comp.lang.lisp. However, by lurking there for a while, I came to understand better the reasons of the residents. Here, "obvious" means "I don't even remotely know what I'm talking about, but I find easier to ask stupid questions instead of studying a bit and then ask reasonable questions." The fact is, Common Lisp is a niche language, and one that is not easy to learn (until you want to translate from your-language-of-choice to lisp, which is pointless anyway). Until one wants to dedicate some time digging this wonderful and partly forgotten civilization, there's no sense wasting time with it, either yours or the others'. But if one does his homework, I've found that the quality of the help provided by the community is the highest I've ever seen.