My first exposure to the expression problem is the book Crafting Interpreters, Section 5.3.1,[1] which is very similar to the GP comment. The subsection is a short few paragraphs, with one or two tables for illustration, and it was one of the most eureka moments of my programming career. Ever since then, I see this trade-off everywhere, and I get reminded that engineering is all about finding the best trade-off and that the holy-grail of a perfect language or design is a waste of time.

[1]: https://craftinginterpreters.com/representing-code.html#the-...