My next questions was, why on earth call it a functional language? Why not just base everuything [sic] on FEXPRs and force evaluation on the receiving side when needed? I could never get a good answer, but the question was very helpful when it came time to invent Smalltalk, because this started a line of thought that said "take the hardest and most profound thing you need to do, make it great, an then build every easier thing out of it". That was the promise of LiSP and the lure of lambda--needed was a better "hardest and most profound" thing. Objects should be it.