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This one of the reasons why, as a Lisp programmer, I don't care much for Clojure. Three different bracketing constructs when one would do just fine. Now I have to go look up the difference between () and {} and [] just to emit some HTML.

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No, you wouldn't. Idiomatically [] is used for declarative structures for consumption by macros (like argument lists) and {} is obviously a map, and is used for any key/value pairs. So the HTML DSL linked above is the most intuitive one to a clojure programmer with regard to the data structures used. Adding maps and vectors to be first-level syntax to clojure is one of my favorite things about the language.

As an old Lisp hand, while I'd prefer those declarative structures to be in old fashioned parens, it's not too obnoxious and has some clarity value in adding it as language syntax. But I agree 100% with the value of adding to the first-level/first-class syntax, it's both clear and very convenient.

That's funny. This is one of the reason why I don't care much for Common Lisp. Hashtables in particular are common as mud in programming, but I have to work with a clunky interface specific to each abstraction. Ironically this puts CL closer to Java and C++ than the likes of Python and Ruby.

Hashtables are common, if one does not have other choices.

For many uses of hashtables, lists are just as good.

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