>How many people reading this are 50 years old? Lisp is 50 years old — and for the most part, the lifespan of a programming language is closer to the lifespan of a dog than to that of a person. Only one other language (Fortran) is that old and still in use. Why has Lisp survived? Not because it’s useless. People still use it because you can write working code in Lisp way faster than you can in most so-called “practical” languages.

Sorry to burst this bubble, but tons of languages created in the same period or 10-15 years later are still in use.

Fortran, which he already mentioned. COBOL is still in use (much much more than any Lisp, just not in shiny new startups). Forth is still used here and there. C of course which is about 12 years younger but still around 40ish. Pascal is still used (in far greater numbers than Lisp). Heck, even BASIC still has tons of fans, either in VB disuise or in the the various commercial BASIC's around.

With this in mind, Lisp being "50 years old and still in use" is much less impressive -- since one other 50 year old, and several 40 and 30 year old languages are still in widespread use. We use lots of 3+ decades old languages - so, it's not like we only use "new" languages and Lisp is the exception.