[xkriva11]

In Smalltalk, it is just

probe message

without any brackets, and you can write

a+b

which is the message + send to a with argument b. You just have message passing syntax for everything (Smalltalk has minimal syntax comparable to Common Lisp in size). IMHO it hit the sweet spot of simplicity/readability/expressiveness.

But you cannot judge Smalltalk only from the perspective of its syntax. You need to take into account the context in which it is used. The environment built around it. Then everything starts to make much more sense and forms a vital well balanced system. It is Lisp but different, and I strongly recommend downloading Pharo and to try to figure out how.

I stronlgy admire you; I read "Lisping at JPL" at least dozen times over the years. I really like Lisp, Forth and Smalltalk, and I know that knowing each of them well is worth every penny, even if it may not be obvious on first sight.

[lisper]

> which is the message + send to a with argument b

Yeah, I get that. What I don't get is why I should care that "a+b" means "send the message + to a with argument b" rather than just "add a and b". I see no benefit of the first formulation over the second.

(And thanks for the kind words!)