Lisp doesn't take any more time to get productive in it, than any other modern language. It takes a bit longer to really get it though. There are a lot of thing

Lisp doesn't take any more time to get productive in it, than any other modern language. It takes a bit longer to really get it though. There are a lot of things in Common Lisp that take some time to sink in, because you rarely see them in other languages, like macros, generic functions, conditions, etc. But you don't need to know these things to start using lisp right away.