We're looking at the same string and seeing different things. You're seeing `(write-string "hello world")` as a program, I'm seeing it as an expression.

It has linked list semantics, which you can preserve until runtime like this `'(write-string "hello world")`. Note that I didn't change the string, I changed its context. If the original were living in a string, and you called read on it, it would become a linked list. If you called eval on that list, it would become a function call. This is basic stuff which I'm well aware you know, so I'm not sure what all the quibbling is about.

You literally need a linked list to write a program in a language in which the code becomes linked lists. And you're going to have a bad time writing Lisp if you don't get the hang of cons cells, early and often.

Is "code is data" true, or false? You're trying to have it both ways here.

The "large number of programmers who have learned about linked lists but haven't run into many cases where they needed them in the world world" include approximately zero programmers who have wielded Lisp in anger, is my point. I thought that was pretty clear from context, but I guess not.