Using anecdotes to prove a point is precisely what I mean by cherry picking. I know that Lisp projects can be successful, but is there some systematic way to show that they're in fact more successful? Google and others throw money around at a lot of non-Lisp shops too. Because it's possible to succeed with method B does not mean that there is a reason to switch if what I value is success.
If it makes programming more fun for you, great, but I think even that (if it's systematic for lots of different programmers) should impact the bottom line in some way that I could imagine measuring?
It just seems to me from casual observation that the success of Lisps is disproportionately low (not to be straw-manned into zero) compared to the enthusiasm and the exposure so many programmers have had to it through means like SICP at MIT. This is admittedly unscientific.
If it makes programming more fun for you, great, but I think even that (if it's systematic for lots of different programmers) should impact the bottom line in some way that I could imagine measuring?
It just seems to me from casual observation that the success of Lisps is disproportionately low (not to be straw-manned into zero) compared to the enthusiasm and the exposure so many programmers have had to it through means like SICP at MIT. This is admittedly unscientific.