Question: I know this is not a very technical question, but it's for all technical people, that's why I ask it here. Here is my question:

Can someone help me understand the current and future of learning LISP? One of my papers in university uses LISP for a project (it's a big project - may be two semester long), and I am not able to decide whether I should put lots of effort into learning LISP if there is no future in LISP, or should I just learn as much as needed for the assignments and do some other project which doesn't need any LISP. I know a little bit of basic LISP. Please help me.

Answer: 
Lisp is one of those languages that really changes the way you think about programming. If by value you mean marketability, it has very little value. If you mean value as in what it gives you as a developer, I would say that it is quite a bit higher.
Some of the features that we take for granted in new languages had their origins in Lisp. ([This article](http://www.paulgraham.com/diff.html) has more information on this). Languages [continue to borrow](http://blog.vmathew.in/invokedynamic) ideas from Lisp. Lisp's biggest advantage is its ability to represent *code as data and data as code*, which most of the 'popular' languages cannot accommodate because of their convoluted syntax. Lisp remains at the forefront of programming language research, and the next *earth shaking* language will be closer to Lisp than to anything else! So a knowledge of Lisp programming will keep you ahead in the game.