>IMO the primary reason LISP isn't mainstream is because it results in less readable code for humans
I disagree. Being a mathematician LISP just feels natural and the ugliest, most horrible and hard to read language by far is java (IMO, of course). But that's just probably because all my life I've been thinking about functions and not objects.
If your background is OOP and look at some LISP there's no surprise if it looks unreadable, even more so if you have no real motivation to understand it.
I disagree. Being a mathematician LISP just feels natural and the ugliest, most horrible and hard to read language by far is java (IMO, of course). But that's just probably because all my life I've been thinking about functions and not objects.
If your background is OOP and look at some LISP there's no surprise if it looks unreadable, even more so if you have no real motivation to understand it.