title: Are Lisp source code files themselves lists?
body: <p>No matter the Lisp dialect, it looks like every source code file containing Lisp functions isn't itself a list (the first time I was "surprised" by this was when working on my Emacs <em>.el</em> files).</p>
  
  <p>I've got a few questions but they're all related to the same "issue" and it's probably just me misunderstanding a few things.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a reason why source code files for the various Lisp dialects seems to be a bunch of "disorganized" functions like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>(function1 ...)
  (function2 ...)
  (function3 ...)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Instead of a "Lisp list" of functions, maybe like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>(
    '(function1 ...)
    '(function2 ...)
    '(function3 ...)
  )
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm a bit surprised in this whole <em>"code is data, data is code"</em> thing to see that source code file themselves apparently aren't neat lists... Or are they!? </p>
  
  <p>Are the source code files something you're supposed to "manipulate" or not?</p>
  
  <p>What if I wanted to, say, convert one of my <em>.clj</em> (Clojure) source file to some CSS+HTML webpage, isn't it a "problem" that the source code file apparently isn't itself a list?</p>
  
  <p>I'm beginning with Lisp  so I don't know if my question makes sense or not and any explanation would be welcome.</p>