it's Lisp syntax that drives the JVM See, this wouldn't bother me so much if it assumed the user knew the JVM instruction set and built up abstractions around

it's Lisp syntax that drives the JVM See, this wouldn't bother me so much if it assumed the user knew the JVM instruction set and built up abstractions around it. But no, that's not what it does. It creates another "language", meaning "obscuring abstraction" that isn't friendly to inspection.