No, computation is a mathematical discipline; the lambda calculus is one way of thinking about computation (I won't say it's the best, but it's a way) which is part of that discipline; C simply … isn't.
Common Lisp, of course, is a hell of a lot more than just the lambda calculus, but it's also a hell of a lot better a language than is C.
> Apparently the [guile] 2.2 branch has full elisp support. Can't wait for Emacs to run on it.
I really wish folks would spend the time they spent porting elisp to guile Scheme porting elisp to Lisp instead. Scheme's great for what it is (really), but what it is not is an industrial-strength systems programming language. Common Lisp is.
> there is a reason that C is the foundation of computing rather than Lisp. I don't think anybody really thinks otherwise anymore
I must not be anybody, then, because I think that Lisp provides a wonderful notation for thinking about symbolic computation which will last for millennia while C is … a successful programming language of the late 20th century.
> I don't know how you even write a hash table based on cons cells rather than O(1) indexing.
A cons cell is just a double-pointer. You can write a hash table using conses just as easily as you would using pointers (note, I'm not saying that'd be efficient, which is why Lisp offers arrays as well as conses).
Common Lisp, of course, is a hell of a lot more than just the lambda calculus, but it's also a hell of a lot better a language than is C.