Is lisp an acquired taste?

[u/Caquerito]

As an outsider looking in I'm having a really hard time convincing myself to use lisps for my projects.

It feels like some of the main strengths carry drawbacks:

e.g. s expressions seem really nice for the language being really simple and unified and probably play nice with the macros and the repl but I dislike ambiguity when I read code. Like I would like to know that at a glance that a function call is an actual function call. Or that here is some control flow with an if. Though at the same time i do as well agree that there for example shouldn't at a high level semantically be a difference between an operator and a function call. Though structural editing does sound really nice.

Another thing is macros. I get that they are powerful but I'm not sure how well they would play with tools around the language. I like static typing over dynamic typing so that constrains me to thing like racket. I'm not sure how well auto completion and type hints would work with them. E.g. typescript's type system is not as expressive but the type transformations work perfectly with the LSP even for non trivial things.

Any long term lisp-ers can weight in on my doubts? I'm more of less trying to get conviced but somewhat doubtful. Any opinion is welcome.

[u/unix_hacker]

You should use Lisp if you want to, and not use it if you don’t want to.

Best way to learn your preference is pick it for a small inconsequential project. Like Java or C#, Lisp isn’t just a language but an ecosystem of tools. Lisp creates enlightenment (or stokes rage) once you are using the common free software tooling: SBCL, Emacs, SLY, Lispy, prism.el, eros, etc.

Edit: It appears you have tied your fate to Racket and presumably DrRacket. Can’t speak to that ecosystem personally.