[falcolas]

> This is not the case with Clojure.

Well, it actually is the case, it's just that they've built out the core library with a ton of functionality; intermingling the actual Clojure keywords (there's only ~17 of them) with the convenience macros and functions built up from those two primitives. Someone wrote all of those functions and macros. Hundreds of functions and macros were built by the language creators to give the functionality of a complex language.

> Not that much is implemented in macros.

74 of the functions exposed in the core api alone are macros. Perhaps the most often used one is "defn" (and somewhat ironically "defmacro").

[astine]

    intermingling the actual Clojure keywords (there's only ~17 of them) with the convenience macros and functions built up from those two primitives.

It sounds like you are drawing a distinction between the core Clojure language and the macros and functions in the core Clojure namespace. This is not really a valid distinction. That's the thing about Lisps, that much of the language is implemented in the language itself. Macros make the language easier to extend by both the language designer and random developers and users in appropriate cases. You can keep special forms to a minimum. Those those functions and macros are considered part of the core language even if they aren't special forms.

[juliangamble]

In case you're interested, Lisp can be implemented with 7 primitives (some say 5). So in a sense Clojure went overboard to increase the verbosity of Lisp to make it easier for newcomers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3482389/how-many-primitiv...

[nickbauman]

... so it sounds like we're in violent agreement.