Introduction

Lisp is often dismissed as an undesirable programming syntax due to excessive parentheses. Those who have adopted Lisp have long recognized its amazing strengths, but there is still a widely held uncertainty among newcomers about how or even why we must manage so many parens. As a result, Lisp's unique power remains invisible to most under this guise of difficulty.

Newcomers aren't satisfied with the current tools designed for editing Lisp. Expert-level editors (Emacs, Vim) and advanced hotkeys (Paredit) are powerful but steepen the learning curve. And alternative syntaxes (Lisps without parens) have faltered since they sacrifice some of Lisp's power that seasoned users aren't willing to part with.

NOTE: When I say "parens"** (parentheses), I also mean [square] or {curly} brackets. Some Lisps use these extra delimiters to help visually separate certain constructs.