I disagree. :-) It is that simple, at base! More stuff = more things to wrap your head around. I posit that a well-written terse solution should say exactly

I disagree. :-) It is that simple, at base! More stuff = more things to wrap your head around. I posit that a well-written terse solution should say exactly the intrinsic needs of the problem at hand, and no more. The ideal language abstraction would explain exactly what needs to happen and no more. The key forms of the language (macros, functions, etc) should be built up to that point so that it is clear what is going on. There is - in my mind - little difference between (with-open-file (file-stream filename) (do-stuff (read file-stream))) and stuffDoer(fileObject(filename).read()); Both say (to me) exactly the same thing at approximately the same level of abstraction; one does it with Lisp syntax and one in traditional C++ syntax. The question starts to arise after a while - what abstraction tools does the language make available. At what point do you need functions, classes, closures, m4 macros, lisp macros? Well, at the point when you need them. :-) These are all just tools to say exactly what you mean in as much code as you need. If you have a social problem of a bunch of cowboys all whooping it up in your codebase, I don't think any technical solution is going to help you. :-)