An AST is just objects. Just like Lisp was designed to manipulate lists, Scala is designed to manipulate objects. The difference is that an AST has more structu

An AST is just objects. Just like Lisp was designed to manipulate lists, Scala is designed to manipulate objects. The difference is that an AST has more structure, which is a good thing. The least structured are just plain strings, then come s-expressions, then ASTs. Lisp is only halfway there to a modern macro system.