You don't need to know much lisp beyond ( + 2 3) returns 5 to follow the example on one slide in set of 55 slides(assuming you know someting about STM). If yo

You don't need to know much lisp beyond ( + 2 3) returns 5 to follow the example on one slide in set of 55 slides(assuming you know someting about STM). If you don't know that, you wouldn't get much from the slides anyway and will have to do some reading of your own. Besides it is a set of slides. The actual presentation consists of more than the slides. If you were there yo could ask the presenter to explain what is happening. Anyone who can't do that (or be bothered to take the time to spend 10 minutes reading a tutorial on any lisp) should either (a) look at the rest of the slides (all 54 of them) or (b) go do something else. the slide seems to be partly a survey of concurrency constructs in several languages. How do you expect the presenter to present examples of concurrent language code without using code from those languages? " but I see no compelling reason to learn it and use it over what I know now. I don't see what it has to offer which would seemingly would require me to relearn programming from scratch, so I'm not going to put in the effort." This is your choice. Just don't whine that other people are using languages they know to show code examples. "but don't be surprised when you find yourself lacking an audience." you (as in someone who was not there for his presentation, reading this on HN long after the presentation and who "cannot be bothered to learn" lisp ) is obviously not his audience. So what? He made some slides for a presentation and was generous enough to put those slides on line. . There are no "spikes on seats". You weren't there in the audience. That's all.