The first problem is that students inevitably confuse a list containing just one element x with the value x itself. The confusion is compounded in Lisp because this unit list is written either (list x) or (x), depending on whether it has been evaluated yet. In Miranda one always writes [x]. The concrete syntax of Miranda also helps a bit: students are used to dropping parenthesis, so that (x) becomes x, whereas they are a little less likely to convert [x] to x.I really hope this is parody.