Python's Lisp heritage

[Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]

Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz at cern.ch> wrote previously:
|> I feel the default S-expression syntax
|> represent a legitimate barrier to entry, however slight, to new
|> people approaching and learning the language for the first time.

|As your experience suggests, it is a very slight barrier. The
|multitude of people who have never made a sincere effort to overcome
|this barrier

Personally (as someone who has been paid to program maybe a dozen
different languages, over about two decades), I have found S-expressions
to be a *HUGE* barrier to entry from me programming Lisp.  Actually,
EVERYONE else I've spoken to who has tried to learn Lisp has expressed
the same sentiment (except those few in whom it "took").

Yeah, yeah... blah, blah..  I know the underlying semantics are not the
surface syntax.  And I know that macro packages can define other syntax
forms.  This information is *stunningly* irrelevant.  Every Lisp book
and tutorial I've tried to read, and almost every bit of sample code,
uses these same "meaningless" S-expressions.  You really cannot get away
from the parenthesis and prefix notation in practical terms, whatever
sophistical advocates claim to the contrary.

Yours, Lulu...

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