I think the point is that less ceremony makes it feel like less progress is being made, but actually it's equivalent. Information density is much higher compared to java, but the programmer is still rate-limited himself, so his brain will work at the same rate. The benefit would show up in time spent reading and in higher signal/noise as you don't have to spend brain cycles dismissing boilerplate. It's not as big a boost as say garbage collection vs no garbage collection, but still notable. I think clojure's immutability story reduces cognitive load quite a bit on its own. Also, I don't think clojure has the craziness of perl, but I've never used perl. It's pretty easy to read, IMO.