Clojure is a pragmatic language, and I think if you just reject the immense value of being on the JVM and try to treat it as something pure and unsullied then you're missing a lot of its motivation.
there are other vms that would provide the same level of value, though, for clojure. the fact that it runs on V8 via ClojureScript is proof of that.
personally, I believe they should have used BEAM originally and stayed as far away from the jvm as they could, but that is my own opinion, and everyone has their own opinions.
I don't think there's a world where Rich Hickey would have had it running on BEAM. From what I've read, a large part of why he originally chose the JVM is because companies he wrote software for would be okay with something that runs on the JVM, but not something like Common Lisp. And surely not BEAM.
At its core, Clojure attempts to be practical. Running on the JVM was a practical decision.
Oh, I understand the reasoning behind the choice. Doesn't change my mind in the slightest that BEAM would have been a better underlying VM for Clojure.
