I wouldn't have spoken up except for this comment

Thanks for speaking up. At this point no one is really presenting any evidence so it’s a necessary evil to offset the Lisp slander even if it is, like the parent comment, not much more than an appeal to authority / popularity. Syntax is absolutely neither natural nor unnatural, by nature, to humans, but it’s a fact that fewer symbols to memorize is easier than more symbols to memorize. The problem is a failure to launch. Some people never truly understand that it’s not just syntax, it’s semantics. Data is code, code is data. That’s why it all looks the same. This artificial distinction in “C-like languages” is more harmful for the enlightened programmer than it is helpful. Unfortunately not everyone that reads SICP experiences enlightenment the first time (or ever, I guess?)

I've had an introductory Scheme course in a smaller university, and have experience designing data structures, creating parsers & interpreters, and with multi-threading and networking. I was never one to really dig lisp. I prefer the structure and the groundedness of a statically typed systems language (I mostly do systems work). But I took on reading SICP in the hope of finding something new and interesting, and to level up my skills. However, I got bored by the it. Probably made it through more than half of the book. It's a bummer because I'm left with the feeling of missing out. Am I not worthy or too obtuse to get what's so great about the book? Or maybe I am in fact not the target audience, having too much practical experience that the book doesn't seem worth my while.

Honestly GP is making two very valid points though. Something that Clojure does is differentiating between () = lists of calls, [] = vectors (the go to sequential data structure), {} = maps. This definitely helps the eye to see more structure at a cursory glance. It has a little bit more syntax compared to Scheme, but the tradeoff seems to be worthwhile. Secondly, I think it's very healthy to be wary of indirection and abstraction. I'm not sure if I agree with the tone and generalization about modernism, but I think there's a burden of proof, so speak, when it comes to adding abstractions, especially in the long term.

> Take your time with it, but do read it. And do the harder exercises. Really do them, not just read and tell yourself you understand how to do that one and move on.