3 ms·

Parentheses in Lisp is like significant whitespace in Python: A big stumbling block for people who don't use the language.

• kgwgk 6y ago
  But for those who use the language one is a powerful feature and the other a minor annoyance.
  • agumonkey 6y ago
    I don't even remember when parens stopped being an issue. I think my hate relationship toward algol syntax was so strong, sexp were an obvious answer from minute 0.
  • iambrj 6y ago
    One man's hack is another man's elegance
  • Insanity 6y ago
    The parens made me reluctant to try lisp. Then, 5ish years ago I decided to "just do it", and now they don't bother me at all. The experience of a beginner is also important though, especially for language adoption, this might be one of the reasons why lisp flavours are not more popular.