Having such a cumbersome syntax for hash tables is just as real a problem as the verbosity some Lisp programmers hold against e.g. Java. One solution could be

Having such a cumbersome syntax for hash tables is just as real a problem as the verbosity some Lisp programmers hold against e.g. Java. One solution could be a read macro that translates into the (setf (gethash ...)) form. Lisp read macros are usually prefix, though, and [key]hash is awkward. OTOH, adding suffix read macros (maybe only of the form symbol[... values], e.g. hash[# key] or hash[: key], with brackets and char(s) at the beginning to represent which suffix read macro. Or, making the hash a function: (hashname key) to get, (hashname key newval) to set.