Plenty of valuable things that fall out of the norm can be "hard to read" if one doesn't invest any time whatsoever (e.g. Lisp).
The real question is what happens if one does invest the time. In the case of Forth, one needs to commit to memory the standard words. After that point, it reads smoothly and unambiguously (assuming good coding practices and stack effect declarations, bad code that's hard to read can be written in any language).
Same thing goes for Lisp and parentheses.
Alas it is far too easy these days to dismiss things that do not immediately "click" since fewer and fewer people seem willing to make the effort due to conditioning and network effects. This has led to a proliferation of bad languages and a lowest common denominator approach to programming.
The real question is what happens if one does invest the time. In the case of Forth, one needs to commit to memory the standard words. After that point, it reads smoothly and unambiguously (assuming good coding practices and stack effect declarations, bad code that's hard to read can be written in any language).
Same thing goes for Lisp and parentheses.
Alas it is far too easy these days to dismiss things that do not immediately "click" since fewer and fewer people seem willing to make the effort due to conditioning and network effects. This has led to a proliferation of bad languages and a lowest common denominator approach to programming.