Good post. I haven't used clojure yet, or any purely functional or lispy languages, but I'm keen to try. I'm especially interested in macros and dsls, as I feel like I'm always trying to bend ruby and python into structures that seem, from the little I know of lisp, like they really want to use lisp macros, and the more experience I get, the more I feel like that sort of metaprogramming is where the real power is. That said, I'm also wary of trading the comfy, curated library ecosystems of rb/py land for what looks from the outside like the overgrown jungle of Java.

I think I've narrowed my next learning project down to either clojure or node. Node seems perhaps more immediately useful and easier to grok, while clojure may offer more for my overall development as a programmer. I'm not the type to build a throwaway educational app--I have to feel like whatever I'm working on could turn into something real, even if it's unlikely, so if I were to go with clojure, I'd want it to be for its potential to really offer more power and productivity in making something cool and getting it launched, not just as an academic exercise. I have a couple busy months of contract work to go before I'll be able to dive into anything, so it's great to read reports like this while the decision stews.