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Re: Justify introducing Lua at my workplace?

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No. Because in HTML you never have >>>>> that is illegal whereas )))) is legal in Lisp, unless you get the number of them wrong. The comparison is invalid.
)))) is legal in C, C++, Lua, Pascal, JavaScript, and most other languages, so what's wrong with that? The comparison is not invalid. XML requires twice as many angled brackets as Lisp requires parenthesis, to express the same structure. 
The problem is I am not homophobic. I thought your comments were a joke.
Yeah, and Larry Craig is not gay, or so he says, again and again. Of course my comments were a joke, but there's a kernel of truth that makes it so funny. What's even funnier is how upset they make some people, who can't come up with any better arguments against Lisp than "too many parenthesis".
The other thing is I have never associated someone have a Lisp or any form of speech impediment with them being homosexual. I think you'd have to be pretty weird to make such an association. Camp behaviour often associated with some gay men has nothing to do with Lisping speech, nothing whatsoever.
Are you saying that with a straight face, or is that a joke? What planet have you been living on? Have you ever watched American television? I'm talking about widely held stereotypes, not the actual behavior of all real gay people. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_lisp
"A gay lisp is actually not a lisp but refers to stereotypical speech attributes assigned to and sometimes heard in gay males.[1][2] These attributes have proven difficult to define and quantify but seem independent of other variables in the phonology of the English language, such as accent and register.[3]"
I don't think about "the why" of the names of any computer languages, just as I don't think about "the why" the names of my friends or cars or trees etc. They are just names, some has historical reasons. But to think about the name and then place some weird prejudice based on sexuality onto something totally unrelated to sex is, frankly, odd.
Would you really name a programming language after the Dutch word for "prick", if you knew that was what it meant? Trying to separate human psychology from programming language design is quite odd! Programmers are users of programming languages, so programming language design is user interface design, which has a whole lot to do with psychology. If you had come up with some valid criticisms of Lisp, I wouldn't have brought up homophobia and cognitive dissonance. But you trotted out that tired old "too many parenthesis" argument on your own.
Using the rationale I think you are promoting, C++ must be some sort of macho language. Not only does it have a penis but its double the length. Does this then imply that the C language is feminine? Sorry, but that is rot.
Lots of people use Perl and C++ in a way they think makes them macho. In the words of the brilliant programmer Ian Bicking: 
http://blog.ianbicking.org/code-pickiness.html
"It amazes me that Perl programmers complain about Lisp's parenthesis, then they go write programs that look like line noise, on purpose. Some actually savor Perl syntax, thinking it makes them more manly. It's like voting for Bush because he puts on a macho act, even though you know that his policies are horrible and he's a liar."
I don't have a knee jerk reaction to Lisp. Knee jerk implies sudden reaction, typically to something you have no or little experience of. Rather than 2 years of "it really shouldn't be this unproductive".
Why were you so unproductive? Maybe it's not the language's fault, but your own. Did you use punched cards instead of an intelligent text editor? What were you trying to do with it?
The language has a name. Its a token. The token's value is "Lisp". The value of that token has no relation to what experiences I have had with that language about 20 years ago. The idea that it does is nonesense. If that was true I'd never have tried Python because its the name of dangerous snake. Heaven knows how the "Shark" language will fair, if it ever is created.
People don't have cognitive dissonance about snakes and sharks as much as they have it about homosexuality. People usually acknowledge their fears of snakes and sharks, and those fears are actually justified. Cognitive dissonance means that you are in a state of denial, the same way a closeted homosexual like Larry "Wide Stance" Craig is in denial and does not consciously realize that he's gay, even though he can consciously remember repeatedly having sex with men in airport bathrooms.
Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean that you can convince me that my experiences were wrong with some weird theory that relies on me being a homophobe.
You were probably just brought up in a homophobic culture, and many people internalize it without realizing it. Or do you deny that the culture you were brought up in is homophobic? What culture was that, the Netherlands maybe?
I'm not suffering from Cognitive dissonance on this issue. I'm quite prepared to accept that other people use Lisp and find it OK. That doesn't affect in any way whatsoever my experience with it. Its like saying because you like Coffee I should too, when I know for a fact that Coffee is disgusting. Life isn't like that and neither is pyschology. 
Stephen
Well if you're not homophobic, then why are you spreading FUD about Lisp? The "too many parenthesis" argument is ridiculous! 
 -Don

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