It's a lot better for numerical work. * Julia has multiple dispatch like in CLOS, except generic functions can devirtualize their arguments, and can be inlined

It's a lot better for numerical work. * Julia has multiple dispatch like in CLOS, except generic functions can devirtualize their arguments, and can be inlined, making the composition of many small function calls significantly faster. * All functions (except a dozen or so internal builtins) are generic functions which can have methods added to them, and all objects can be dispatched on. * Objects can be isbits and allocated inline in an array or stack allocated without any pointer indirection. * Julia's type system is parametric, and things like Array is parameterized on it's contents, meaning that you can dispatch on thing like Array{Int} as a distinct type from Array{Quaternion{Float64}}. There's lots of things Common Lisp does really well, but I really do think in the niche of numerical computing, Julia just blows it out of the water for performance and also ecosystem size / vibrancy.