I wasn't criticizing the project, just responding to comments.
And I appear to have said "new users" when I really meant "beginners".
Experienced programmers as new users will stick if the language is appropriately expressive. Beginners will stick for different reasons and the only people who really seem to have a handle on beginner programmers from a professional standpoint is the PLT group of Racketeers. Pretty much everything else I see about beginning programmers is based on anecdote and personal opinion not the quality of data Felleissen has collected.
In all seriousness, I hope you're not suggesting Common Lisp, never mind a non-standard version of it, as a beginning programming language in the typical case when much more suitable Lisps are available and under active development.
