I love the language. I’ve never found a language where I found the learning curve so shallow for being able to do so much.

That said, I do find myself pining for the ability to easily compile a static executable (maybe with a small embedded runtime). Some time ago there was an attempt to port Clojure to Gambit Scheme, but that appears to have fizzled.

More recently, I’ve seen Ferret, which compiles a subset of Clojure down to C++. Also Joker, which is a Clojure-ish interpreter in Go.

Then there’s GraalVM, which I don’t trust, because it’s Oracle.

I feel like the relative lack of traction for non-Java / non-Javascript implementations is part of the brilliance and sadness of Clojure. Namely, the JVM is a rocket ship and a boat anchor.

Racket (modulo the uncertainty cast by the Racket2 discussions) and Gerbil Scheme both have a pretty good “distribute an executable” story while trying to introduce some creature comforts beyond plain Scheme. I suppose my ideal, would be something a little more like Clojure in terms of language, and a little more like Scheme in terms of deployment options.