The difference is that name/value pairs have a dedicated syntax in JSON and Nix, in Scheme everything is (), doesn't matter if it's a function call, list, assig

The difference is that name/value pairs have a dedicated syntax in JSON and Nix, in Scheme everything is (), doesn't matter if it's a function call, list, assignment, macro or whatever. Makes it very hard to understand what is going on at first glance. Worse yet, the normal Scheme syntax is so ugly that people constantly write macros to hide it. Take this package definition in Guix: (package ... (build-system gnu-build-system) (arguments '(#:configure-flags '("--enable-silent-rules"))) (inputs (list gawk)) Looks like a list with name/value pairs, but it's not, that's just the (package)-macro making that thing behave that way. And it's all quite arbitrary, '#:configure-flags' there is a name/value list too, but constructed completely differently. And the next line with (inputs) constructs a list with (list) instead of with a ' quote, as otherwise the list would contain the symbol 'gawk' instead of the value. Scheme is basically: "Here is the a bunch of Lego, go build yourself a programming language". Other language have syntax that forces at least a minimum of consistency.