Lisp (historically, LISP) is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized prefix notation. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today. Only Fortran is older, by one year.
And yet, despite its age, LISP is a fascinating language, almost infinitely flexible, beloved by computer scientists for its ability to model the depths of mathematical logic. It is, in a sense, the ultimate ancestor of all our beloved dynamic languages. Scheme is a popular dialect of LISP, well-known for its decades as MIT’s teaching language.
Let’s dive into the wisdom of the ancients with our own LISP expert, DDL member Jordan Henderson!