I have already read various accounts of Clojure vs. Scala and while I realize that both have their place. There are a few considerations that I haven't acquired a complete explanation on when it comes to comparing both Clojure with Scala:
1.) Which of the two languages is generally faster? I realize that this will vary from one language feature to another but an general assessment of performance would be helpful. For example: I know that Python dictionaries are really fast. But as a whole, it is a much slower language than Java. I don't want to go with Clojure and run into this problem down the road.
2.) How is interoperability with Java? All I have read so far is that Scala has native collections types that make it a bit clumsy to integrate with a large Java code-base, whereas Clojure follows a simple Iterable/Iterator-centric way to inter-operate with Java classes. Any more thoughts/details on this?
Ultimately, if it is a close enough draw between clojure and scala, I might try them both. One thing about Clojure is the language seems very simple. But then again, Scala has a very flexible type system. But, I know that Scala is fast (based on multiple personal accounts). So, if Clojure is significantly slower: I'd like to know sooner rather than later.