Lisp code is almost always written on multiple lines, with an editor that automatically indents everything. Code in a more familiar language (C?) would also loo

Lisp code is almost always written on multiple lines, with an editor that automatically indents everything. Code in a more familiar language (C?) would also look incomprehensible if ten lines were all smushed together on one. I let Emacs indent that, and it came out like so: (let ((prod (apply #'* probs))) (/ prod (+ prod (apply #'* (mapcar #'(lambda (x) (- 1 x)) probs))))) You still have to learn the idioms (it's a different language!), but it's not just a jumble of parenthesis. Prefix notation takes some getting used to for arithmetic, but that's neither here nor there. You probably have a bundle of idiosyncratic operator precedence rules memorized (quick, does 3*4+5 equal 27 or 17?), and Lisp doesn't use those, preferring to consistently use parenthetical nesting for everything. See also: http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/1397/lispnd7.png http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/1397/lispnd7.png