Linux has the "small pieces loosely coupled thing down" in a way that LISP is no where near at all.<p>LISP could be this awesome. It has the bones to be flexible. Yes Lisp has a very cute creative re-use & some well tread stdlib.<p>But *nix/Linux keep evolving & changing & growing & LISP has been stuck forever with vaguely 1970's stdlib, with lurching attempts to become more that only ever semi-materialize. Linux kept levelling up, kept growing it's capabilities & systems, but LISP keeps being defined by it's core, and a robust capable evolving stdlib keeps being an illusory changing aspect.<p>There has been so much detesting of JS for being fickle & changing, but honestly, there's been a somewhat clear trajectory forward, vectors of growth where things happen & eventually sense is made & it gets adopted. I am not a LISP expert but my distant sense is that LISP continues to be a good bit more of a free for all, continues to have all the power, where "different implementations can focus on different needs of programmers, and can develop these features without affecting other implementations of the language," but there is almost never a real forward vector, nothing ever gets turned into an expected capability. Linux grew. It kept growing. In spite of the protests, it has kept refinining & iterating (systemd, wayland, & slow-but-growing new useful options for the base cli utils), and by compare I see LISP's "different needs" as it's core weakness, alas, it's inability to ever pick good ways forward, rather than it's strength.