dash said that Lisp is for people who are afraid of parsers.  I think he's wrong, or that at the least he should explain himself. Here are some reasons why.


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## Syntax needs printers

Once you've got a parser, you are only half done.  You need a printer: something that can turn the parsed data structure back into a stream of bytes.


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Is there a better word than "printer"?

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## Mini-languages demand brain

There is some cognitive overhead associated with a new syntax.  Reading through code, some of which is in one syntax, some of which is in another, is harder than reading through the same code in the one syntax.


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## Parsers aren't enough

So I have an elegant, custom-designed syntax that I can easily parse.  Great. Now, where's my syntax highlighting?  Where are my structured editing tools? My language-aware grep?  My linters?  My intelligent diffing algorithm?