"In many programming circles, the mention of C++ merits a big yawn. It's not that the language is retired, since some 38 percent of software developers use C++ at least part of the time, according to Evans Data, Inc. But it's no longer perceived as cool."
"...Norvig had written the program in Lisp in 2 hours, while the times for the C++ developers ranged from 3 to 25 hours." After I read that, I knew I had to try the problem.