I'm not the OP, but I also use Clojure and feel qualified to comment.
The Lispyness is a big part of it, but Common Lisp and Scheme have that too, and I still think CL does it better in a couple places. I don't usually go crazy with macros in my own code (a few here and there, where they're really needed), but having them in library code is amazingly helpful; the DSLs for various things are amazingly rich. Have a look at ClojureQL and tell me there's a nicer way (conceptually - it isn't as feature-complete as it could be) to integrate your app with a database.
Beyond that, it's that Clojure feels like a very well designed tool for people to use. Dozens of times, programming in various languages I've thought "this task would be so much easier if only the language had X", and Clojure more often than not has the X I'm thinking of.
The community is a big help too. It's full of smart, friendly people. It's small enough that you can get an answer from someone important (Rich Hickey once optimized some code for me), but big enough that you can get an answer reasonably fast. It's thriving and innovative as well, with people trying new and interesting things all the time.
The Lispyness is a big part of it, but Common Lisp and Scheme have that too, and I still think CL does it better in a couple places. I don't usually go crazy with macros in my own code (a few here and there, where they're really needed), but having them in library code is amazingly helpful; the DSLs for various things are amazingly rich. Have a look at ClojureQL and tell me there's a nicer way (conceptually - it isn't as feature-complete as it could be) to integrate your app with a database.
Beyond that, it's that Clojure feels like a very well designed tool for people to use. Dozens of times, programming in various languages I've thought "this task would be so much easier if only the language had X", and Clojure more often than not has the X I'm thinking of.
The community is a big help too. It's full of smart, friendly people. It's small enough that you can get an answer from someone important (Rich Hickey once optimized some code for me), but big enough that you can get an answer reasonably fast. It's thriving and innovative as well, with people trying new and interesting things all the time.