In fairness, the optimal way (in the limited sense of speed) to solve a lot of stuff in Clojure involves lots of type hints, primitive math and mutable arrays,

In fairness, the optimal way (in the limited sense of speed) to solve a lot of stuff in Clojure involves lots of type hints, primitive math and mutable arrays, so you're in a tough situation of trading performance for idiomaticity and looking dumb either way you go.