One problem I have with Lisp is that there are a lot more fanatics than in other languages' communities. They are easily upset by even the mention of other languages and seem to see Lisp as the ultimate language with no room for any others. This produces blog and newsgroup posts extolling the virtues of Lisp and telling everyone who doesn't love Lisp that there is something wrong with them. People who say they know Lisp and still choose to use other languages are looked at as particularly defective. It's not just that they don't want to use other languages, it's more like they don't want other languages to exist. They spend at least as much time trying to make other languages look bad as they do trying to make Lisp look good.
I know this doesn't describe everyone who uses Lisp, but these fanatics are very vocal and the reason I stopped reading comp.lang.lisp and decided to try other languages. I am not against being excited about a language and trying to convince other people to use it. I love Haskell and tell people about how wonderful it is all the time, but I understand that they have reasons for using the tools they do. I am more interested in the theory of a language than in how good it is at solving some practical problem, but some people don't care at all about theory and just want to get things done. I don't understand why, but I accept it. I think that the most important thing the Lisp community can do to be more popular is to be friendly to newcomers and those who disagree about Lisp's superiority. There are some very helpful and friendly people, they just need to be more vocal and drown out those who are not.
I know this doesn't describe everyone who uses Lisp, but these fanatics are very vocal and the reason I stopped reading comp.lang.lisp and decided to try other languages. I am not against being excited about a language and trying to convince other people to use it. I love Haskell and tell people about how wonderful it is all the time, but I understand that they have reasons for using the tools they do. I am more interested in the theory of a language than in how good it is at solving some practical problem, but some people don't care at all about theory and just want to get things done. I don't understand why, but I accept it. I think that the most important thing the Lisp community can do to be more popular is to be friendly to newcomers and those who disagree about Lisp's superiority. There are some very helpful and friendly people, they just need to be more vocal and drown out those who are not.