Lambda the Ultimate

I've recently made an observation about syntax that has provided the first compelling reason I've seen to *NOT* use the traditional fully-parenthesized prefix syntax of Lispy languages. Instead, it looks like a better option for avoiding deeply nested syntax is the argument-parenthesized prefix syntax of Algol-like languages, along with an infix dot as syntax for an infix field-dereference operator for objects.

The rationale is that with these two syntax additions, you are able to avoid a lot of nesting levels when programming in a functional style -- and nesting levels are often one of the things people find confusing to keep track of.

When programming in a functional style, you usually want a "functional OO" style, ie, all operations on objects return new objects rather than modifying extant objects in place. This is frequently referred to as "monadic" programming, but IMO that terminology mainly gives rise to confusion.

So let's look at a straight Lispy syntax for a compound operation involving three method calls with two arguments each:

((getmethod
   ((getmethod
      ((getmethod object method1) arg11 arg21) 
         method2) arg12 arg22) 
            method3) arg13 arg23)

Here the syntactic nesting is six paren-levels. The same operation with the dot for an infix field-dereference (eg, getmethod) operator gives this:

(((object.method1 arg11 arg21)
      .method2 arg12 arg22)
         .method3 arg13 arg23)

which is three paren-nesting levels and three infix dereference operators, and seems easier for humans to parse. Now, if we switch the lispy fully-parenthesized prefix notation for the Algol-ish argument-parenthesized prefix notation, we get:

object.method1(arg11 arg21)
   .method2(arg12 arg22)
      .method3(arg13 arg23) 

Which is still the same six levels of semantic nesting, but no longer syntactically nested in parentheses at all. And this seems easiest for humans to parse, because the whole syntax for each operation "extends" the syntax for previous operations instead of having to be nested inside it.

Argument-parenthesized notation is just as 'regular' as fully-parenthesized, so macrology/call syntax can work the same way. The "infix dot" can be a reader macro as typical for lisps giving a fully-regular syntax. So, although the usual downside of losing lispy syntax is loss of ability to manipulate the code as data, I'm not seeing it here.

Just an observation at this point, but did I miss anything important?