Yes; Julia isn't unique in being a modern high-level high-performance language. But it's the only one I know that explicitly targets numerical computing, and it chooses its trade-offs accordingly.
Agreed, that wasn't meant as a knock on julia. Just pointed out there is a long history behind the approach. Part of lisp's role in the "last AI bubble (TM)" was how natural it was to express certain types of problems in it. Julia is clearly targeting a similar advantage in other areas.
This is true - I once wrote something like that in a common lisp but never got it past the half-assed but useful.
Similarly (but painfully and never completely successful), see all the c++ expression template approaches to linear algebra. After 15 years or so some of them are quite usable but retain some of the pain.