I like Lisp because it feels precise.


I like machines that have crisp edges: keyboards that click when I type
so I know exactly the instant they register, cases made of cool metal rather
than plastic, minimal window decoration and no squishy gel icons.

I love Lisp's syntax because it is everything I wish a language to be. It is the
polar opposite of Perl; it is logical, consistent, and predictable.

Perl attempts to do what I mean, but if it is wrong there may be no forseeable
way to explain my intent. Lisp is ultimately forseeable. It does what I say, and
from that foundation I can far better make it do what I mean.

Perl is mushy and illogical, like a human. It chooses human failings over the
austere virtues of the machine.


So why am I dissatisfied with Lisp?

I think it is because only Lisp's prepositions are beautiful. The notation of
its syntax, its connective tissue, is sublime. But the actual nouns and
predicates are mundane, just another library to be learned. Wading through
unknown libraries of arbitrarily named and arbitrarily specified functions is
mushy.

There needs to be a Great Theory of taxonomy, of the naming of actions and
things, as Lisp embodies the Great Theory of syntactic relation.