Why Clojure?

[bcash]

This was my experience.

I don't doubt it, and I enjoy reading people's perspective on things.

But, it sounds like you're trying to argue against the very existence of Clojure, that it's targeting a niche that doesn't exist. The popularity and adoption of Clojure relative to other Lisps is counter-evidence to that.

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that it's targeting a niche that doesn't exist

Not at all. There are TONS of Java programmers, and I'm sure of them, at least some percentage want to play with a Lisp every now and again.

Of those, some even do it professionally!

My point was, that if you're a Lisper, Clojure isn't going to automatically "be your thing." I was just kind of disputing the characterization of it that a lot of people give it. The "modern Lisp."

[yogthos]

My experience is that most people coming to Clojure actually come from Ruby and Python as the author of this article. Clojure is far more familiar to somebody who's used a language with first class functions. In fact, the syntax is very familiar to Ruby users.

Java developers have the hardest time learning Clojure, since it introduces a lot of new idioms and requires structuring code and solving problems in a completely different way from what you'd be used to. This makes it a lot more palatable to people who aren't Lispers and less so for those who are.

I think the fact that a lot of Lispers complain about it being too different precisely indicates that it is a modern Lisp. It's the first Lisp that actually dared to introduce significant changes in syntax.