It's not a lisp thing. It's the smart way to approach the problem of helping folks in trouble. Start from goals. This is also not why lisp users tend to be s

It's not a lisp thing. It's the smart way to approach the problem of helping folks in trouble. Start from goals. This is also not why lisp users tend to be smug. Lisp users tend to be smug because they know they are smarter than most people. And, to be fair, on the basis of IQ, they probably are. They are smug because they prefer the "correct" to the "effective" and will make extended academic arguments to support this point. They advance "worse is better" as if it were a criticism of the technologies that are successful in the marketplace. Perhaps this is even true in a strict academico-logical sense. But this is also why Lisp has had such limited success in that marketplace which they love to criticise. If you want to mostly live in a cloister, then being the Confucian master of correctness is fine. If you want to make it in the hurly-burly, you must adopt a different attitude.