Lisp

The real problem with Lisp is that it was designed without any consideration of the cognitive load experienced by the programmer.  The syntax may be simple, but the semantics are extremely complex and hard to master.  This is completely at odds with needs of the programmer. 

The main cognitive load is in developing a solution to the real world problem.  The programmer is engaged in reflective cognition.  Basic UI principles dictate that, when designing tools to aid in reflective cognition, they must as intellectually shallow as possible.  The less cognition required to operate them, the more is available for completing the required task.

Lisp was unintentionally designed for experiential cognition.  It contains many artifacts, each with a very deep and rich set of semantics.  All cognition must be devoted to its operation.  It is no surprise that it only attracts programmers who are only interested in using it for its own sake.

>>30

Instead of telling me how pathetic I am you could bring up some examples on which languages are slow period.

Who cares? I could sit here and name shitty languages which, while 'theoretically' being able to have a decent implementation, in fact don't: Python (Psyco is shit, and so are all of those other useless little things you can do that make Python 'fast'; the only way to make Python fast most of the time (yes, after you've optimized your algorithms) is to drop down to C and deal with the gross kludge that is the Python API), Ruby ('fast Ruby implementation' is almost an oxymoron at this point, probably because anyone with half a brain would just use Lisp anyway, thus leaving only idiots to work on Ruby), Perl.

But really, who cares? What does it matter? What point is it proving? You all keep reminding me that a faster implementation 'could' exist, but the fact is that it doesn't, and it's years upon years of work to make one that is even remotely decent. SBCL has been around for over 10 years (longer than that if you count all the work that went into it in the form of CMUCL) and it still can be weird when trying to optimize a program.

All of this useless, unproductive pedantry is why I stopped caring about programming the first place. Fuck it.