The fact is that there aren&#x27;t actually more parens than most languages. Take a look at any JavaScript code base and you&#x27;ll see far more parens there.<p>One benefit of Lisp syntax is that it provides you visual information about relationships in the code, since it&#x27;s structured as tree. The nesting tells you how functions relate to each other at a glance. It makes the code easily scannable, once you&#x27;re used to reading it.<p>Another big advantage is that you can use a structural editor with Lisp. You don&#x27;t actually manage parens by hand, the editor does it for you. You can see it in action here. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cursive-ide.com&#x2F;userguide&#x2F;paredit.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cursive-ide.com&#x2F;userguide&#x2F;paredit.html</a><p>The syntax is actually one of the easiest ones to learn, because there is very little of it and it&#x27;s very consistent. Just because it&#x27;s not familiar, doesn&#x27;t mean it&#x27;s hard to learn.<p>I use Clojure at work and I regularly train co-op students. I haven&#x27;t had a student who took longer than a couple of weeks to become productive with the language, or didn&#x27;t love using it. However, most had a negative reaction to the syntax initially.