Lisp syntax is (<operator> <args...>) with a few special forms (def, if, cond etc.). This is really easy to understand and allows the user to go straight forward and learn about the semantics and general programming practice immediately.
That same regularity also means there are few guideposts as a student programs, and this makes it much harder to recover from mistakes. We've looked at a lot data on this (and have taught Racket at every level for decades).
This reminds me a bit about a similar problem in Haskell. The syntax is very whitespacey so lots of things that would usually be syntax errors in other languages end up being interpreted as invalid function applications, leading to complex type-errors.
Absolutely. For instance, if you leave off an argument in a recursive call, Haskell will quietly think you meant to curry the called function, which can manifest itself as a type error in some entirely different place.
You seem to be under the impression I haven't programmed in Lispy languages. And our data are from students using DrRacket, which very much has paredit support. These are just inconvenient truths.
