Complaints like "Clojure has nine different ways to define a symbol" are moot. Pick one that your team likes and go with it. On to the next thing. Also, to argue against Lisps by arguing against Clojure is like arguing against democracy by arguing against the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It's a valid complaint. I think the quote by John Carmack:
"Everything that compiler will allow will at some point be written"
Describes the situation well.
In other words, since Lisp pretty much allows all, anything will be written in Lisp. When you look at Lisp function, it might do what you want, or it might not. There are no guarantees it does what it claims to do. So, chances are you either have supreme belief the guy behind it did his end of the deal, or you are writing your own. And with all the power Lisp offers why not write your own? And this is generally what I think is the failing point. It brings NIH of the highest magnitude to software development.
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It's a valid complaint. I think the quote by John Carmack: "Everything that compiler will allow will at some point be written" Describes the situation well.
In other words, since Lisp pretty much allows all, anything will be written in Lisp. When you look at Lisp function, it might do what you want, or it might not. There are no guarantees it does what it claims to do. So, chances are you either have supreme belief the guy behind it did his end of the deal, or you are writing your own. And with all the power Lisp offers why not write your own? And this is generally what I think is the failing point. It brings NIH of the highest magnitude to software development.
Tests, contracts, type checking - those are the guarantees. It's not unlike any other language.