[allover]

There's a huge difference.

The parens in lisps are significantly detrimental to its first impression, and 3rd, 4th ...

I have literally never met a developer I can show a lisp code sample to whose reaction isn't "what the hell is that?"

It looks totally alien compared to C-style langs, which is what most people learn.

With Python, that is not the case at all, basic Python can be interchanged with pseudo-code for the majority of developers from C-style backgrounds.

Pretending this problem doesn't exist, only exacerbates it, and really holds back lisp adoption in my opinion.

[blunte]

> Pretending this problem doesn't exist

Young children tend to look with disgust upon many meals that adults find especially delicious. Is it a problem with the food, or is it a matter of experience and perspective?

I'm very tempted to give examples, but it's not worth it here. Suffice to say, this falls squarely in the category of "you don't know what you're missing".

In this long essay by Paul Graham - http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html - if you're willing to search for and begin reading at "The Blub Paradox", you'll get a sense of what I mean.

And then if you want to really be enlightened, at least to concepts that really what matter regarding programming languages, go watch videos from Rich Hickey (Clojure).

[allover]

> "you don't know what you're missing".

I think I do. I've had the argument many times here, code-as-data, metaprogramming, structured-programming. Things I don't want, aren't worth the trade-off, and things I don't want to see colleagues inflicting on others.

I've already watched (almost) every Rich Hickey video (well his main "talks"). I love them, agree with the vast majority of what he says and it has shaped me as a programmer, but I don't agree with the final conclusion being to code using lisps ;)

[Roboprog]

That wasn’t very nice, but it felt spot on.

Curly braces are the chicken nuggets and fries of computer science, lol.

Within about 18 months at university (80s), I learned BASIC, FORTRAN, Pascal and Lisp. Syntax, yeah, whatever.

(We transitioned to C later, to my horror, with an eye towards a future using “C with classes”)

[allover]

> Syntax, yeah, whatever.

The vast majority of the programming world simply doesn't seem to agree.

[Roboprog]

True.

Don’t expect me to be happy about that, though.

I’ll even upvote your comment, as it does matter a little. Too bad C is what “we” settled for.

[setr]

The claimed problem that exists however is... lame. It really boils to "if it doesn't look like C, I'm not learning it", which is a fairly pathetic argument, and not one that can actually be bested with any targeted marketing or discussion.

Most developers only learn a new language because they're forced to: at work, or joining an existing project as part of their hobby, or because the library they need requires it, or because its the only option available to them. At the point, the fact that it looks like C, or doesn't, won't matter. And they'll get over it. No one claims Nginx/Apache DSL is great, or terribly C-like. Or even really claim that its un-C-like. But I'll reluctantly learn it (to a minimum need) because I want my damned site up. Most languages are learned like that.

Developers who learn a new language for the sake of learning a new language will likely not be drawn in by it being C-like syntax, or not. At least, most who've gone around that rodeo a few times will quickly realize that the superficial syntax isn't that interesting -- It takes 20 minutes to learn the syntax (maybe not APL). You're in it for the different semantics.

What you need for mass lisp adoption is to get a hype cycle going, and pathetic justifications for parenthesis isn't going to get you there. Babbling about how hyper-parameterized cooperatively consistent parenthesized datastructures will change the world is likely more effective.

[tincholio]

> It really boils to "if it doesn't look like C, I'm not learning it"

I think it's funny that most people who complain about this are likely coming from Java, JS, or Python, not C. And they probably would suffer a lot in C...

I've made the jump to Clojure, and to be honest, it's painful going back to other languages, but not just because of the syntax, but rather the lack of expressive power, and the excess of boilerplate. I had to do some Python work last year, and it felt like coding with a straightjacket on.