I'm not sure it's fair to tar all newLISP advocates with the same brush. I understand the design choices that Lutz Mueller made, and I can understand how they might be considered unsatisfactory by other Lisp users. That's fine-- I don't expect newLISP to be everything to everybody, and I don't consider it to be the be-all and end-all of languages.
I do find it to be very lightweight and flexible, with excellent documentation and a good built-in library. This makes it useful as a scripting language and for rapid prototyping. I wouldn't recommend it for very large-scale tasks or for projects developed by large teams.
> I don't expect newLISP to be everything to everybody, and I don't consider it to be the be-all and end-all of languages.
Lutz Mueller does. For instance, quote: LISP is an old language born, grown, and standardized in times very different from today, times when programming was for highly educated people who engineered programs. newLISP is LISP reborn as a scripting language: pragmatic and casual, simple to learn without requiring you to know advanced computer science concepts.
Sure, no advanced computer science concepts: just five different hacks to choose from to do some aspect of what a lexical closure does. (Just pick the one whose assumptions are least likely to break in your use case: but no engineering knowledge required to do that, nope!)
NewLisp requires the users to absorb advanced concepts that have fallen by the wayside of the computer science mainstream. A fexpr or self-modifying code are still computer science concepts.
Basically what Lutz is the real problem in NewLisp; other than that, the thing is what it is, take it or leave it. More than needing a compiler, garbage collection or lexical closures, it just needs a dose of humility, really.
On that note, it's somewhat good to see that a lot of the anti-Lisp ranting has been toned down compared to just several years ago. I don't get the sense that Lutz is yet eating any real crow. At best, he's pouring crow-flavored syrup over his ice cream. But at least that's a start!
I do find it to be very lightweight and flexible, with excellent documentation and a good built-in library. This makes it useful as a scripting language and for rapid prototyping. I wouldn't recommend it for very large-scale tasks or for projects developed by large teams.