Comment by drob518

Spot on. For me, it clicked with Common Lisp, 15 years after I graduated from university. Now, Clojure is my daily driver. And it’s extremely difficult to explain to people. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even try. You’re right about all the things you mentioned. Once you discover structural editing, everything else seems primitive, on the level of cavemen playing with rocks. But it’s not just one feature that makes Lisp better. It’s all of it which interrelates and creates a powerful synergy (I hate that word, but in this case it’s appropriate) that just isn’t matched by anything else. There are other languages that have a similar vibe, notably Forth and Prolog, but they are often misunderstood, too. Honestly, that’s my real test of whether someone is a senior programmer: do they understand and at least have an appreciation for these languages, even if they don’t program in them everyday.