Meaning
Lisp syntax is barely abstract; Lisp programs are constructed as trees of S-expressions, which are equivalent to the abstract syntax trees that compilers of other languages create internally. As a homoiconic language, Lisp also makes no distinction between code and data; Lisp programs are themselves just Lisp data structures. Lisp programs can thus generate additional Lisp programs themselves via macros. As a result, the programmer can construct complex domain specific languages with relative ease. Lisp advocates such as Paul Graham claim that this allows faster construction of more robust software compared to other languages. Common Lisp, specifically, has quite large standard library with large number of functions with flexible interfaces, that capture many programming paradigms (like remove, reduce, map, etc.). Greenspun's Rule expresses the opinion that these capabilities are necessary for any complex software package, and so will be redesigned from scratch in an ad hoc manner in any large project, duplicating effort already exerted in Common Lisp.
Read more about this topic: Greenspun's Tenth Rule
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