An interesting study of the effect of social factors (i.e. who does the coding) as opposed to technical factors (i.e. implementation language) in software implementation is rounded off with a final LISP example inthis article.

The conclusion social factors dominate when it comes to efficiency. Unfortunately developers are ineffective at evaluating their own qulaity of work, so metrics must be applied instead of subjective judgment. (or rather, metrics and subjective judgment are uncorrelated. Which is right is of course another issue)

This may not be surprising, but only strengthens the case for scripting languages, and newer, more reflective environments. Microsofts .NET strategy is of course a development in favor of this way of thinking.

Interesting is of course the fact that LISP is fast to write as well as execute and has been aroudn for ages. The only problem for list is the lack of integrability with many 'real world' environments. It's funny how old-school ideas like the UNIX shell and LISP still cannot be beat on fundamentals