Gaaahh.... Just because C++ and Java do something incredibly stupid when it comes to exceptions, doesn't mean exceptions are bad. Just that C++ and Java suck.
On a more serious note, as a native Finnish-speaker, I've always written all of my code and comments in English. It's just so much simpler than any other alternative I can think of.
> I lost seven pounds in the first week, mostly from going to the bathroom as all the accumulated dairy mucus was cleansed from my bowels (now I know why cows need four stomachs to properly digest this stuff)
WTF? Does he think cows eat dairy? Or did I parse that wrong?
Common Lisp can be compiled one function at a time, and functions belong to packages, which are pretty much key-value databases you can modify, where keys are strings (name of the function) and the values are the functions themselves. So if there is something wrong with some function, I just update the value in the "database" and all callers will call the newly defined function from now on. Nothing magical really. This workflow is supported by the CL IDEs such as SLIME.
I think Python-style implicit kw-args are a mistake. It means that caller can depend on the name of your function parameters and you can't change them without breaking existing code, which may not be yours. Explicit kw-args, where the names of params are explicitly advertised as part of the interface of the function, are a fine idea OTOH, and should be in every language.
(edit: apparently it wasn't actually the first comment)