It goes hand in hand. Back in the days people said lisp in newbies hands will be backfire, but handled by those with abstraction skills it will give you ability to express things you cannot with other systems.<p>Many here agree that technology should not matter, but it does at one point. Some trait of the culture behind and around languages are very very important. Lisp tree recursion, &quot;lexicality&quot; and ad-hoc genericity is not present in other languages. Immutability in the ml land (even though side effects are permitted in some) is also something few people have to live in and understand.<p>Both these things give you new idioms, hints, point of view about how to solve problems. It also sheds light on the other ones.