Programming is in tension between the Light Side and the Dark Side.

The Light Side is about preventing the programmer from making mistakes: Get rid of go-tos! Add static types! Do not allow a bug to be expressible. The Dark Side is about giving power to the programmer: Macros? Obviously. Operator overloading? Self-modifying code? Multi-line reg-exps? Go to town!

The Light Side knows programmers are flawed and imposes constraints. The Dark Side trusts programmers with power. Neither side is correct all of the time, and a good programmer learns both.

Lisp is interesting in that it is clearly Dark Side programming (the programmer can do anything) but it's still admired by Light Side programmers. Maybe there's something about the simplicity of the language that makes it seem platonic--almost incorruptible. Or maybe Lisp is so pure that it embodies both Light Side and Dark Side, like a god that spawned the programming universe.

> Or maybe Lisp is so pure that it embodies both Light Side and Dark Side, like a god that spawned the programming universe.

This isn't so far off, considering that some people consider the "Lisp in Lisp" bit from the 1.5 manual to be the "Maxwell's Equations in Software":

https://michaelnielsen.org/ddi/lisp-as-the-maxwells-equation...

Kind of agree, but in my view preventing the programmer to make mistakes is futile. I have seen awful stuff in languages made to prevent errors.

It's much better to give all the power to the programmer, to allow him to fix his mistakes rather than fantasising about preventing them.

Hah, didn't think of it this way... To me it was if it allows live updates (+support for them) or not :)

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