@Simon: Indeed! That sure would explain a lot ;-)

@David: Thanks for the update — I understand that you’re involved in the present effort? In that case, let me first say that it’s a laudable undertaking and I’m certainly following the results with much interest. However, the FAQ entry you pointed me at reads a bit like a C++ apologist’s defense, and seems to indicate that there indeed is some dissatisfaction with (or at least need to defend) the current toolset.

If so, I would respectfully suggest that the text there betrays total unfamiliarity with Common Lisp, both in principle and current implementation status. Even for the moment ignoring all unique features and productivity advantages of Lisp, the specific high-level dynamic language limitations mentioned in the FAQ don’t quite apply, either:

• GC was originally invented for Lisp, and you can get pretty darned fine-grained control over it in the best modern Lisp implementations. No other programming language directly benefits from so much directed research into advanced GC techniques. (See some sample research papers.)
• Similarly, due to some 40 years of compiler research for dynamic languages, Common Lisp is these days usually compiled down to machine code, and performance is comparable to C/C++. There’s no need to use several other languages for prototyping purposes; just stick with the one.

Glad to see that Greenspun’s Tenth is doing all right, though — and the Haskell mention certainly gives some hope :-)