Comment by iLemming

Lisp is more like an idea (or set of ideas) rather than a concrete tool for specific tasks, and it's an absolutely wonderful, eye-opening idea. Unfortunately, as often happens, good ideas groundlessly get ignored. Concepts like formal methods, reactive programming, and immutable data structures also largely go unnoticed, despite being immensely useful for certain types of problems. Unlike those, the basic ideas behind Lisp are far simpler to grasp and probably have far more tangible benefits. The only practical inherent drawback of spending time learning and practicing Lisp today that I can think of is the limited job opportunities. Beyond that, there are only benefits. The common pushback against Lisp usually comes from misunderstanding it. Many programmers often get tired of using the same language after learning it cover to cover, as every language has certain cons and deficiencies. In my experience, with Lisp, it's the opposite. Having been part of multiple teams and guided many programmers on their Lisp journey, I've seen it many times - if someone doesn't like a Lisp dialect (e.g., Clojure) after using it for a day or two, they tend to start liking it more later. However, some people lack patience and quit without ever seeing what actually makes it so cool, deciding that Lisp is just a fad, awkward, and cumbersome. And that's really sad because, really, it is not. Just because someone dislikes, e.g., math, it doesn't become a fad.