Programming language · 1958
Lisp
Functional programming language based on the lambda calculus.
What is Lisp written in?
What Lisp is used for
Lisp pioneered ideas, the REPL, garbage collection, macros, treating code as data, that shaped every language after it. It was historically central to artificial-intelligence research and remains influential in language design.
Notable software: classic AI systems, Emacs (via Emacs Lisp), and AutoCAD's scripting (AutoLISP).
Quick Facts
- Designed by
- John McCarthy
- Developer
- Steve Russell
- First released
- 1958
- Typing
- dynamic
About Lisp
Lisp is a functional programming language based on the lambda calculus. It is a dynamically typed and garbage-collected language that is executed directly by an interpreter. It supports functional and multi-paradigm programming.
Lisp first appeared in 1958 and was designed by John McCarthy. Development is led by Steve Russell.
How Lisp is implemented
In the Language Lineage dataset, Lisp is self-hosting, so its own compiler is written in Lisp itself. Reaching self-hosting, where a language is mature enough to compile itself, is a milestone that proves the language can handle a large, real-world program.
Lisp in the language family tree
Lisp drew on ideas from Information Processing Language and went on to influence Scheme, Common Lisp, ML, Julia, Clojure, and Ruby.
Frequently Asked Questions
Evidence Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheme_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_(programming_language)
- https://julialang.org/blog/2012/02/why-we-created-julia/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clojure
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tcl
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scala_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planner_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_(programming_language)
- Lisp on Wikidata (Q132874)