文章探讨了Lisp语言尽管优秀，但为何使用人数不多的原因。作者指出，语言的流行度与质量并无直接关系，就像畅销小说家不一定比经典作家更优秀一样。Lisp因其独特的语法和学习曲线，给人以难以亲近的感觉，导致很多人望而却步。此外，过去Lisp速度慢的缺点已不复存在，但流行度低的现状却导致库和工具的匮乏，进一步限制了其发展。作者认为，编程语言并非完全等价，Lisp等小众语言凭借其独特的优势，依然拥有自己的生存空间，就像经典文学作品一样，总有人会欣赏其价值。

🤔 **Lisp语言的语法和学习曲线较为陡峭，与大多数人熟悉的语言差异较大，导致很多人望而却步。** 就像学习一门新的语言一样，Lisp的语法结构和思维方式与传统语言有很大的不同，需要花费时间和精力去理解和掌握。

⏳ **过去Lisp语言速度慢的缺点已不再是阻碍其发展的因素。** 随着Lisp方言的发展，其运行速度已达到甚至超过了一些主流语言，性能问题不再是其劣势。

📈 **编程语言的流行度具有自我延续性，流行的语言拥有更多的库和工具，进而吸引更多开发者使用。** 就像滚雪球一样，流行的语言会吸引更多的开发者和资源，从而进一步巩固其地位，形成良性循环。

💼 **管理者更倾向于选择流行的语言，因为这能让他们更容易找到和替换开发者。** 使用流行语言可以降低项目开发的风险，更容易找到合适的开发人员，因此管理者更倾向于选择流行语言。

📚 **Lisp等小众语言依然拥有其独特的优势，就像经典文学作品一样，总有人会欣赏其价值。** 尽管Lisp语言的流行度不高，但它在某些领域依然有着独特的优势，例如人工智能和符号计算等，因此依然有一部分开发者和用户在使用它。

May 2003If Lisp is so great, why don't more people use it? I was asked this question by a student in the audience at a talk I gave recently. Not for the first time, either.In languages, as in so many things, there's not much correlation between popularity and quality. Why does John Grisham (King of Torts sales rank, 44) outsellJane Austen (Pride and Prejudice sales rank, 6191)?Would even Grisham claim that it's because he's a betterwriter?Here's the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice:It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of awife."It is a truth universally acknowledged?" Long words forthe first sentence of a love story.Like Jane Austen, Lisp looks hard. Its syntax, or lackof syntax, makes it look completely unlike the languagesmost people are used to. Before I learned Lisp, I was afraidof it too. I recently came across a notebook from 1983in which I'd written:I suppose I should learn Lisp, but it seems so foreign.Fortunately, I was 19 at the time and not too resistant to learningnew things. I was so ignorant that learningalmost anything meant learning new things.People frightened by Lisp make up other reasons for notusing it. The standardexcuse, back when C was the default language, was that Lispwas too slow. Now that Lisp dialects are amongthe fasterlanguages available, that excuse has gone away.Now the standard excuse is openly circular: that other languagesare more popular.(Beware of such reasoning. It gets you Windows.)Popularity is always self-perpetuating, but it's especiallyso in programming languages. More librariesget written for popular languages, which makes them stillmore popular. Programs often have to work with existing programs,and this is easier if they're written in the same language,so languages spread from program to program like a virus.And managers prefer popular languages, because they give them more leverage over developers, who can more easily be replaced.Indeed, if programming languages were all more or less equivalent,there would be little justification for using any but the mostpopular. But they aren't all equivalent, not by a longshot. And that's why less popular languages, like Jane Austen's novels, continue to survive at all. When everyone else is reading the latest John Grisham novel, there will always be a few people reading Jane Austen instead.