LISP is short for LISt Processor. LISP is the name for a family high-level programming languages that are most commonly used in artificial intelligence research, as it makes no distinction between a program and data. LISP is ideal for manipulating text and happens to be one of the oldest programming languages that are still in active use.
Technipages Explains LISP
It was originally created and published in 1958 – the only commonly used language older than LISP is Fortran. Several individual iterations of LISP exist, the most popular ones being Scheme, Clojure, and Common LISP. Each version is essentially a dialect of the original version, which was originally created as a practical mathematical notation. More specifically, a mathematical notation for computer programs, influenced by the notation of Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus. Lambda calculus is a formal system in mathematical logic, and it forms the functional basis for LISP languages.
Lists form the functional basis of the data structure of LISP languages, while the final, compiled program performs computations that express values in those lists. LISP languages fall in the category of other public domain programming languages, completely unintelligible versions of it exist. Anyone can go and create a variation of it. Because of this, there are a lot of different versions and only a select few of them are fully configured, generally accepted and standardized. The main one of that is Common LISP.
Common Uses of LISP
- LISP is a collection of high-level languages mostly affiliated with AI research.
- Because it’s a public domain language, a lot of useless and broken variations of LISP exist.
- The list-based nature of LISP languages means everything is processed through, from and to lists.
Common Misuses of LISP
- LISP is a high-level programming language no longer in active use.