This is one thing I've never understood about Clojure - the Java interop. I actually love Clojure but I close my eyes to the fact that it requires an object-oriented VM to work its magic. Clojure is a functional Lisp based on immutable data structures which is about as far from Java OOP as it gets yet we're encouraged to mix Java objects and classes into our Clojure apps as if nothing matters.

Funny, when I code in Clojure there are these things called multi-methods, protocols and multiple dispatch.

I think it was originally designed in a Lisp library called CLOS, which incidentally stands for Common Lisp Object System.

Very nice explained on how to implement OOP in Lisp, in a book called "The Art of the Metaobject Protocol".

Users of Lisp based languages should think twice before criticizing OOP.

Users of Lisp based languages generally think about six times, on average, before criticizing OOP (each time).

> You don't always have control of what libs you are using

Well that's true regardless of the language. If you're not making the decisions on the codebase, there can be all kinds of gnarly dependencies and practices that you have to adhere to. I agree that big legacy corps tend to have over cumbersome setups, but hey, at least it's not cobol. My advice is not to work for big legacy corps.

But some languages have better cultures/eco-systems than others. Java has one of the worst.

Far from it IMO. It depends on which subculture you immerse yourself in. If you subscribe to the IBM/Oracle/Red Hat thought leaders, then yes - you'll encounter enterprisey stuff, because they're all targeting legacy corps.

Believe me that I know where you're coming from -- I have a real aversion the big enterprise side of the Java world. There's a lot of interesting development in Java open source though, and it'd be a shame to throw the baby out with the bathwater.