I think you’re right. What LISP really brought to the party was a very simple token structure. This made it pretty easy to express manipulations of that structu

I think you’re right. What LISP really brought to the party was a very simple token structure. This made it pretty easy to express manipulations of that structure and hence create whatever macros you like. This is instantly useful to the compiler writer because most of “LISP” is built upon more basic primitives. The disadvantage is the Jeff Goldblum “You scientists” meme.