Lisp. The language you didn't know is important

The podcast Software Engineering Radio in their 84th episode narrated one of the most unknown moment, for at least my generation, of Artificial Intelligence, as well as of Computer Science history. At first, and as it should be in every technical discussion, Dick Gabriel introduces to the listeners not only the functionality behind the modus operandi of Lisp, but the context in which those solutions were being applied. During the first days of computational research  in the mid twentieth century, there wasn't a collection of paradigms as wider or as strict as it is it now, thus, the need for a language that treated and transformed data easily for a variety of domains was evident. It was at this time when John McCarthy, one of the first AI researchers in history, decided to write Lisp, a programmable solution based on the easy manipulation of data structures, such as Lists, that in the future would not only facilitate laboratories to apply mathematical notations easily in a computer, but also help some businesses develop specific activities. Due to what was previously stated, Gabriel says that during the mid 80's and late 70's Lisp was a Java-like language in terms of popularity and tool-sets presentation.

Later on, this program explains more technicalities of Lisp language like its syntax or its frameworks system as well as its attempt to introduce itself to the newly object oriented programming paradigm via the meta-object protocol o the Common Lisp Object System. Nonetheless, what I found more important regarding this podcast, was the community factor that, in the end, was what made Lisp disappear in the academic field. At some point of the program it is hinted that Lisp flawed to be the AI driven language not because its lack of functionality, in fact, it is explained how the runtime execution of Lisp's functions was the first application of intelligent or cognitive programming, but instead due to the absence of long term support of its own research community. I may agree that Lisp its still present until this day, well, at least during the 2008 context of this program, in the form of applications such as Yahoo store creator, however, its objective of being the Industry's best alternative for cognitive computing was lost and I really doubt this can be undone. 

As a conclusion, I must say that although the program presented terminology kind of hard to catch as a newbie in the Lisp context, with the development of assignments of this course I can easily see its importance and the impact in computer science. As I say in the second entry, communities, not only in programming, but in any other human sector, can be so harmful that can promote the premature death of a potential big-impact solution.