I'm a Clojure fan, and the syntax has nothing to do with it. The pervasive immutability, persistent data structures, ease of threading and STM mechanics are the

I'm a Clojure fan, and the syntax has nothing to do with it. The pervasive immutability, persistent data structures, ease of threading and STM mechanics are the good bits as far as I'm concerned. The language could have a Python skin on it and still maintain much of what makes it pleasant to work in. I'd probably even prefer it. Furthermore, the reaction to Clojure by the lisp community in general seems to be quite negative, like it's some inferior lisp that doesn't even have things like reader macros, and it makes no sense why it's getting traction when CL never did. Which is all to say, I think the answer to what makes Clojure compelling is actually quite nuanced, and you're painting over it with a broad brush. Maybe with the wrong color.