Is this really about syntax? I think this is about homoiconicity. But homoiconicity is NOT the same thing as parenthesis, (or brackets as here)! Homoiconicity is not a (concrete) syntax issue, it's an AST and semantics issue in my view.

Why are we so hung up on the superficial details of the syntax. Can't we just have an AST spec with bijective mappings between different human presentations? Editors already do color coding for us and people use different fonts for their code, but flamewars about what colors and fonts are quite rare. I don't see this as anything fundamentally different.

Is it somehow difficult to accept that different syntax may map to identical AST? Lisp is intentionally syntactically very close to its AST and I find this elegant. But why are we so hung up that the human interface for this has to be parens? Are people confused somehow that wanting to use different syntax means they want to change the language? Even if it no way forces people not to use parens if they want. Can't "the language" just be the AST?

Am I overlooking something? I find this to be an almost trivial solution to many many neverending flamewars. I personally don't like parens because I want computer to do what it does best, which is doing routine churn like matching up parens. I don't mind if somebody else wants to see the parens. Why should I mind? The computer doesn't care at all. Multiple people could edit the very same code, one with parens, one with brackets and one without either (e.g. significant indentation).

The EMACS solution is paredit or something where the editor tracks the parens. But why do these have to be there at all if the computer already knows how to track them?

For me this is almost identical issue to C-family semicolons, tabs-vs-spaces indentation, formatting guidelines, the Guido colon, significant whitespace etc. Is this some authority or status or tribal thing or something? Or cultural lag from moveable type era?

I don't get it. Why people find it so important how other people use want to see the superficial syntax? It's like having strong opinions how other people should paint the interiors of their house to me. Or is there some mix-up between form and function and we have different understandings where the separation goes?

BTW, I recall seeing this post before, but it's not dated. As per wayback machine this has been published in 2020, and seemingly just has "repost=true" GET-variable for "dupe-busting(?)". Shouldn't this be marked as (2020) in the title?