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It's called prefix notation and it's the most primitive form of representing ordered computation. It was the easiest thing to implement in the glorified calculators of the 1950s. It's not the "Lisp syntax" that works, it's the lack of syntax that enables this uniformity and flexibility but irks the eye.

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re: "lack of syntax"

I agree (though it doesn't necessarily irk the eye after some getting used to). Rather than saying it has a "uniform" syntax as the article author does, I am fond of saying lisp has "no syntax," because it's essentially true.

Minor nitpick, but weren't the best of these calculators (i.e. the HP ones with RPN) postfix instead of prefix?

>> weren't the best of these calculators (i.e. the HP ones with RPN) postfix instead of prefix?

Yes. RPN is more like Forth than Lisp.

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