Lisp, again

Some time back a friend told me he'd ported a big piece of software from Java to Lisp. This having originally written the app in Perl. The move to Java seemed logical. The move to Lisp seemed crazy.

For some time I've been reading Paul Grahams blog. Bill reminded me of an old post where Paul extolls the virtues (bit of a 'told you so' smell there?) of Lisp. Even when compared with modern languages. The bit that made me sit up was the idea that modern languages are 'catching up' with Lisp? This peaked my interest. For one I bought Pauls Lisp book, and skimmed it. Then forgot it. Then picked it up again now I have more time.

When I was introduced to SGML, the transform language of choice was Scheme. One of the languages that JC picked up in a day or so of study (my guess). I was gob-smacked at Scheme. Have you heard that expression, does simple things easy and still can manage the hard things? That's Scheme. Some people say that you need to come out of the ivory tower if you're into Scheme. Lisp is waiting at the door. I've picked up this from a couple of reference sites, and I'm working through it. Gnu common lisp. Clisp. I've seen comparisons, but unsure where... which one, I should be looking at for general use. I've been an emacs convert for some time now. GNU emacs and elisp is there waiting for me, but I haven't tackled it seriously yet. Seems such a natural, but .... we'll see. I'm looking for a good lisp XML parser at the moment if you can help.