Significance of Lisp

The true significance of Lisp lies in what it lets a programmer understand and explore. It changes the shape of the programmer’s mind.

If the power to manipulate the source code as just another tree of expressions was not enough, then the ability to shape-shift to imperative or functional model is surely enlightenment. You can write a compiler for any programming language in Lisp. Ergo it can shape-shift into any language.

Which explains why all the newly devised programming languages have borrowed everything freely from Lisp.

Everything except the parentheses.