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There are a lot of dialects because its core is one of the easiest programming languages to understand and implement, and once implemented, it's one of the easi
by mikelevins 4y ago
There are a lot of dialects because its core is one of the easiest programming languages to understand and implement, and once implemented, it's one of the easiest languages to extend. That's all there is to it, pretty much.
Anyone who is interested in the design of programming languages will find it easy to make their own Lisp and try out any ideas that seem congenial to them. The natural and obvious consequence is a lot of Lisps.
Creatives gotta create.
- kazinator 4y agoI think there are lots of dialects because it's the easiest programming language to misunderstand. Somehow, someone who makes a scripting language with C syntax , like Awk or Javascript, instinctively knows that it isn't C and not to call it that. But any time slaps together some parentheses evaluator they think they have Lisp.
- johnlorentzson 4y agoThat sounds about right. It's very easy to make something resembling a Lisp, and even easier to call the result a Lisp.