LISP
LISP: n. [from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from
`Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] AI's mother tongue, a
language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length lists and trees
as fundamental data types, and (b) the interpretation of code as
data and vice-versa. Invented by John McCarthy at MIT in the late
1950s, it is actually older than any other HLL still in use except
FORTRAN. Accordingly, it has undergone considerable adaptive
radiation over the years; modern variants are quite different in
detail from the original LISP 1.5. The dominant HLL among hackers
until the early 1980s, LISP now shares the throne with C. Its
partisans claim it is the only language that is truly beautiful.
See languages of choice.
All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return
values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs,
gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar
Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything and
the cost of nothing".
One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example
that most newer languages, such as COBOL and Ada, are full of
unnecessary crocks. When the Right Thing has already been done
once, there is no justification for bogosity in newer languages.
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