> ... its also reasonable to believe that I wasn't a strong enough clojure developer to fix those issues...
Technically it can likely be done but in practice pushing Clojure code for performance (eg, [0]) doesn't follow the usual language idioms and relies on a sophisticated understanding of the interactions between program design, Clojure, the Clojure compiler and the JVM. I'd suggest pointing more at the language than the programmer. In a situation where direct memory management is required Clojure is a weaker choice.
Although in Clojure's defence it leverages immutability to squeeze out some surprising performance benefits without much effort. I would expect Clojure code to be fast by default but challenging to hand-optimise further if that extra level of control is required. Clojure makes it easy to write code that performs well, it is a stronger language for situations where ordinary business logic changes are the productivity bottleneck.
Technically it can likely be done but in practice pushing Clojure code for performance (eg, [0]) doesn't follow the usual language idioms and relies on a sophisticated understanding of the interactions between program design, Clojure, the Clojure compiler and the JVM. I'd suggest pointing more at the language than the programmer. In a situation where direct memory management is required Clojure is a weaker choice.
Although in Clojure's defence it leverages immutability to squeeze out some surprising performance benefits without much effort. I would expect Clojure code to be fast by default but challenging to hand-optimise further if that extra level of control is required. Clojure makes it easy to write code that performs well, it is a stronger language for situations where ordinary business logic changes are the productivity bottleneck.
[0] https://blog.redplanetlabs.com/2020/09/02/clojure-faster/