The %>% notation might not be very short, but there are other short ways of avoiding parenthesis mess as in foo = qux(bar(foo(x))). For instance, Mathematica/Wolfram language allows you to write something basically

     foo = qux @ bar @ foo(x)

which resembles the function composition operator in mathematics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_composition). Piping is basically the reverse notation, i.e. foo = foo(x) | bar | qux.