It is quite a bit more readable comparing (for example) to what you'd do in Python, basically a matter of few extra quotes. Here's an example https://github.com

It is quite a bit more readable comparing (for example) to what you'd do in Python, basically a matter of few extra quotes. Here's an example https://github.com/magnars/dash.el/blob/a17b6b5409825891423b3867cd7bea84852d6ddd/dash.el#L52-L66 https://github.com/magnars/dash.el/blob/a17b6b5409825891423b... Another benefit apart from macros is that you can replace whole subexpressions to modify the function code: https://github.com/raxod502/el-patch#el-patch https://github.com/raxod502/el-patch#el-patch Although arguably you can achieve the same with source code and other languages: https://github.com/adamchainz/patchy#patchy https://github.com/adamchainz/patchy#patchy Although (as a keen Emacs user & someone who often hacks into existing librairies) user I'm not really convinced either that homoiconicity plays that huge of a role in Emacs malleability in particular -- to me it's more about hooks/advice system and being able to dynamically override things to tweak into the way I want them to behave -- and I don't see a good reason why this couldn't be possible in other languages.