In a few of Paul Graham's essays and in some of my own experiences, I have found that Lisp is a very powerful language for hard programming problems, largely due to its powerful macro facilities. These macros give the programmer the power to create entirely new, domain-specific languages without too much difficulty.

I am currently a Master's student and I hope to eventually be a founder, and my question is the title of this submission. I can understand why some people would shy away from Lisp, but I also see how many upcoming programmers appreciate the power of Python and Ruby. I believe, then, that the next big language will be one that combines the macros of Lisp with the ease of use of Python. I think that such a language would be perfect for startups.

I am a glutton for punishment, so my graduate interests lie in programming languages. Here at Ohio State University, there is a language called RESOLVE that a lot of students don't like too much (it's built on top of C++ and is much too wordy), but it does have some interesting concepts built-in that I would like to put in a language of my own. In creating a new language, one of the things that would be first and foremost in my mind would be to ensure it had powerful macro capabilities, so I am interesting to hear your feedback on the viability of a language with powerful macros but fewer parentheses.