I know many people who work on 'real programs' written in lisp and smalltalk. Just because usage of the language isn't common doesn't mean you can't write real programs in it.
I've heard plenty of horror stories about how you can write real programs in php yet, people do ( witness facebook ). IMO, you can write real programs in any language- it is just that each make different things easier to do than others.
http://www.gemstone.com/pdf/OOCL_SuccessStory.pdf
I know many people who work on 'real programs' written in lisp and smalltalk. Just because usage of the language isn't common doesn't mean you can't write real programs in it.
I've heard plenty of horror stories about how you can write real programs in php yet, people do ( witness facebook ). IMO, you can write real programs in any language- it is just that each make different things easier to do than others.