The reference point is C++. What makes Java nearer to Lisp than C++? Mostly the Java runtime, the JVM. C++ basically comes with some kind of manual memory man

The reference point is C++. What makes Java nearer to Lisp than C++? Mostly the Java runtime, the JVM. C++ basically comes with some kind of manual memory management and raw data layout. Lisp comes with Garbage Collection and managed memory. In Lisp one passes references to arrays and other objects around. The runtime tracks which objects are of what dynamic type and of what size. The garbage collection may be a simple mark&sweep or a more complex, say, generational GC. The first garbage collection was developed for Lisp around 1960 and has then slowly spread to other languages. C++ was object-oriented, but with a more traditional non-GC approach. Java changed that.