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Fair enough, I usually start with the title and try to let the rest flow from there, but it's definitely the JVM that was getting me down, not clojure specifically.

I think the JVM route is smart for bootstrapping a new language since it gives you an existing ecosystem to leverage. However, at this point, I'd love to see a native Clojure.

Rich Hickey was already using a native lisp; then he wrote a couple of bridges between it and JVM/CLR before deciding running a lisp directly on the runtime VM was the way to go.

Yup, Gerbil Scheme is also bootstrapped on Gambit Scheme. And Racket uses Chez Scheme underneath.

There is already Common Lisp and Scheme for that.

How about Clojure on node? Starts and runs instantly https://planck-repl.org/

Yes, the newer clojure runtimes like planck or native-image, or babashka definitely take away some of the jvm pain

Why not Lisp on the BEAM - https://lfe.io/.

I prefer to use nbb[0] for this, or babashka[1] when I need to use stuff specific to JVM.

[0]: https://github.com/babashka/nbb [1]: https://babashka.org/

Janet was kind if slow when I tried it and it's too different compared to Clojure. I think I'll stick to Racket for playing with Lisps.