[mumblemumble]

I would guess, based on the second and third sentences of the article, that the author agrees that this is the primary motivation:

> If you already love s-expressions then lisp-flavored languages will make it nicer when you need to build on existing platforms. In case the target language does not support advanced features like macros and REPL-driven development, these can often be easily added by using the s-expressions layer.

To the comment about "parenthesis-laden syntax", I find that, if I actually count the characters, my Java code tends to have just as many parens as my Clojure code. I suspect that there's just a tendency, if all you've ever known is algol-style syntax, to hyper-fixate on lparens that appear to the left of the function name. I think maybe the only programmers who get to criticize others for overuse of parenthesis are Forth, ML, and Haskell programmers.

[randallsquared]

Actually, in my experience detractors tend to fixate on the

    ))))))))))

that ends some lispy code.

[madmulita]

Yet are completely fine with things like:

                  }
                })
              ]}
            }])
          }
        }
      }
   }

[krapp]

At the very least that is more readable due to the indents and the extra syntax. Depending on what language you're using, those different common groups of tokens do communicate context, whereas a dozen right-parens on a single line really don't.