Having seen >1mil EUR of machinery stop because of a quick fix to python code done without special editor and thus resulting in having one #\Space less in one l

Having seen >1mil EUR of machinery stop because of a quick fix to python code done without special editor and thus resulting in having one #\Space less in one line, I would say Python is the language that requires special tools - not Lisp. Worst case, you can align your parens vertically, like many AutoLISP programmers did when their only tool was Notepad or EDIT.COM. And usually incorrect parens result in code blowing up at build time, not runtime. Counting parentheses is definitely easier than counting whitespace. If anything, Lisp just happens to be language with community that embraced quite advanced editor enhancements before many other languages got invented, and thus lisper's baseline expectations might be bigger than other developers'