title: Fixing Lisp Syntax
body: <p>Being a newbie to Lisp I'm wondering if the Lisp syntax could be "fixed"? </p>
  
  <p>Some people say the syntax in Lisp is one of its biggest strengths. I don't quite understand this. </p>
  
  <p>Isn't it possible to replace "obvious" parentheses with a combination of white spaces, new lines and indenting? Just like in Python?</p>
  
  <p>It looks to me like parentheses are the most used characters in Lisp code. I'm wondering if that's true - but if it is, isn't this a suggestion, that there is some redundancy in the syntax?</p>
  
  <p>Is there some simple answer to the question - why so many parentheses?</p>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>(defun factorial (x)
      (if (= x 0)
          1
          (* x 
             (factorial (- x 1)))))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why not:</p>
  
  <pre><code>defun factorial (x)
    if (= x 0)
      1
      * x
        factorial
          - x 1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>e.g. close parentheses at the end of line, and always open them on new lines. 
  Only the 1 would be ambiguous - is it 1 or (1) - but we could introduce an exception - single tokens are not "listified". </p>
  
  <p>Could this work?</p>
  
  <p>Edit:</p>
  
  <p>Thank you all! I see now there are some <a href="http://www.lispin.org/wiki?page=default/links" rel="noreferrer">links</a> at the lispin <a href="http://www.lispin.org" rel="noreferrer">site</a>.</p>