(It (is :wonder (we can (read :text without (as much :brackets as) LISP)))). Well, "as _ as" is technically bracketing, but you get the idea. So I tried once t

(It (is :wonder (we can (read :text without (as much :brackets as) LISP)))). Well, "as _ as" is technically bracketing, but you get the idea. So I tried once to use a dot as list terminator, which didn't work well. I found myself adding different terminators for each level of depth. Because, at some point the encapsulation over multiple levels leads to ambiguity, if outfix notation isn't used (as for the encapsulation in this sentence). A common wisdom is to avoid deep indentation. 3rd normal form schemes are enough for most cases, thank Codd. By the way: I've been hugely interested in historical linguistics recently and came to conclude counting must have been a huge boost for the development of language facility. Basic phrases are just enumerations. Which reminded me of list processing. Many old languages actually tend to follow VSO word order, too. Plural is often enough expressed as reduplication. But I don't have deeper insights to offer from this on how to avoid the parens, except that zeroth order logic is fundamental and a linguistic approach to programming languages might prove fruitful (grammar, not syntax). And by the by the way: Isn't "everything is an object" similar in power to homoiconicity?