Let’s talk about text over symbols and readability.

Return the maximum value of the array “numbers”. The languages are listed in descending order of text > symbol.

Clojure:

  (apply max numbers)

JavaScript:

  Math.max(...numbers);

APL (I couldn't find how to apply this to an arbitrary array):

   ⌈/ 4 3 2 7 5 1 3

Here’s a guess:

  ⌈ numbers

The most aymbol-focused is the least readable to me, and Clojure is the only one that returned good results from a Google search to figure out what was going on. Both “JavaScript ...” and “APL ⌈” gave me irrelevant results.

Furthermore, how is this

  (if a
      true-cond
      false-cond)

harder to read than this, aside from familiarity?

  if (a) {
    trueCond
  } else {
    falseCond
  }

In the latter case, the if/else requires a special syntactical structure. And since it cannot be used as an expression, the common desire to conditionally assign a result spawned the ternary operator: a whole separate syntax that only applies when you want to assign a result to something. In lisps, you just use “if” wherever you need a binary conditional.