The Lisp version is less verbose because it's dynamically typed (in other words, it's less verbose because it contains less information that would allow this co

The Lisp version is less verbose because it's dynamically typed (in other words, it's less verbose because it contains less information that would allow this code to be proven correct). By the way, these days, we write things like val l = ArrayList<String>() If verbosity is your number one criterion to write your code, just skip all error checking and your code will become super concise.