As Hal Abelson said back in 1986 in the original SICP lectures [1] while drawing `(+ 3 (* 5 6) 8 2)` and the corresponding syntax tree on the board: >"We're wr

As Hal Abelson said back in 1986 in the original SICP lectures [1] while drawing `(+ 3 (* 5 6) 8 2)` and the corresponding syntax tree on the board: >"We're writing these trees ... and parentheses are just a way to write this two dimensional structure as a linear character string. Of course, when LISP first started and people had teletypes or punchcards or whatever and (the parentheses character structure) was more convinient. But maybe if LISP started today the syntax would look more like (a 2D syntax tree)." [1]: https://youtu.be/-J_xL4IGhJA?t=2101 https://youtu.be/-J_xL4IGhJA?t=2101