It allows for less syntax, which is a win for readability and also less boilerplate tokens, but still gives you a little freedom to mess with your indentation, unlike python. It means that (true) lambdas wouldn't be a syntactical enigma like they would be in python.

I don't think that you would need to use "}" to end a block though, since it looks like its missing the opening bracket, but maybe double semicolons would work, since they apparently aren't used elsewhere:

    MAIN()
      IO.write("Hello, World!\n")
    ;;

    whois := method(host,
        socket := Socket clone setHostName("rs.internic.net") setPort(43) 
        socket connect streamWrite(host, "\n")
        while(socket streamReadNextChunk, nil)
        return socket readBuffer
    )

What do you mean?

    def acc(x):
        foo = x
        def closures_are_broken():
            foo += 1
            return foo
        return closures_are_broken
    
    
    def acc2(x):
        foo = [x]
        def closure_with_workaround():
            foo[0] += 1
            return foo[0]
        return closure_with_workaround

The same, in Lua:

    function acc(x)
       local foo = x
       return function()
                 foo = foo + 1
                 return foo
              end
    end

Python's syntax forces the language to guess whether you want to make a new variable or use the variable of the same name from the outer scope. The heuristic they have, says that if you assign something to the variable, you get a new one by default. You can declare

  global x

I like both approaches. it's better then having useless {. In some cases improve readability over python lack of marks. and risking mod down by the audience we have here, it's (much (better then (the gratuitous use of (parenthesis in lisp)))))

  how (
      is {
           this();
          }
      any();
      better(
               than[$parenthesis]
             );
      );

?

    how (
      is {
        this();
        }
      any();
      better(
        than[$parenthesis]
        );
      );