On to ... LISP (?)

My financee is a former high school math teacher. One of the term she's introduced me to is TYNT, this year's new thing, and it's companion, LYNT, last year's new thing. Apparently we aren't the only ones subject to fashions. After the CORBA, JINI, SOAP, SOA, SaaS, and the Perl/Python/Ruby/Groovy scripting wars, I'm a bit shell-shocked.

However, in spite of myself, I ave decided to come to grips with reality. Multi-core is here to stay, and the and now we have to figure out how to respond. The big question to me is which way to jump in response. We have our old threading tools (locks, semaphores,et al.), the new thread constructs in C++ standard library, the Intel tool set, and others.

To me, the most interesting development is is the sudden increase in prominence of functional languages. So, I'm taking a look at hybrids like Scala, F# and old favorites like Haskell, and a new incarnation of Lisp, Clojure. To warm up my functional muscles, I'm using it as an excuse to experience a blast from the past, and starting with The Little Schemer. Currently, I'm working through a chapter a night. The complete reliance on recursion seems a bit forced at times, but it is a good mental workout--yoga for the recursive part of the brain.