I agree that lisp can be made readable. And C can be made unreadable. OTOH lisp encourages deep nesting, which makes it harder to be readable. Here's a rougl

I agree that lisp can be made readable. And C can be made unreadable. OTOH lisp encourages deep nesting, which makes it harder to be readable. Here's a rougly equivalent program, if I read the lisp correctly. void test-+() { *test-name* = test-+; another-var = foo; assert( 1+2 == 3 ); assert( 1+2+3 == 5 ); assert( -1 + -3 == -4 ); } I'm not saying that this is any better than the lisp equivalent - the lisp function is certainly more elegant. But because C is procedural/stateful, it's more natural to have flatter programs. And flat programs are easier to make legible, because you're less tempted to put multiple things on a single line to avoid going another level deeper in your indenation.