Clojure for real competitive edge and performance

In Beating the average, Paul Graham mentioned lisp is the secret weapon behind his startups, he also elaborated on that point. I believed deeply that after I wrote some small programmings in common lisp before I learnt reddit pilot from lisp to python. Since then I always doubt if the power of lisp is still relevant considering that java, dotnet, python and ruby ecosystems are more mature than that time.

A recent finding changed my mind. In Healthcare domain, FHIR is a relative new standard. Most vendors are trying hard to delivery new features, one of them stands out in its feature list depicted in below picture, aidbox. The architecture diagram from its website mentions its main programming language is clojure. That resonate the ideas behind "Beating the average".

How does Aidbox optimize its system performance? That really grabs my attention! In past reading and clojure coding practices, I always got the impression that clojure is slow. It will definite be an issue for a commerical product. I really wondered how aidbox resolved the issue. A good thing is that I can get a docker image to try aidbox. clj-fast , one of the libraries used by aidbox are quite performant, its readme mentions Naked Performance (with Clojure) – Tommi Reiman ( slides ). It gives about several ideas how to improve performances of clojure. It worth to watch the video and read the slides.

Any other high profile companies are using clojure beside nubank? Appsflyer is one of them. What’s a pity that no company in singapore is using clojure.