Well according to the Elixir docs it does make a bit of difference in terms of homoiconicity[0] (that famous Lisp property of code=data, data=code), which makes

Well according to the Elixir docs it does make a bit of difference in terms of homoiconicity[0] (that famous Lisp property of code=data, data=code), which makes meta-programming easier. Also, would you rather code brainfuck or C using pointers (both being semantically identical)? ;) [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconic