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I'd like to study the official Clojure implementation. Can anyone who is familiar with the code recommend where to start reading it from? Are there certain parts which will make understanding the rest of it easier, or which are key to understanding how Clojure works?
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“Made simple” Rich Hickey made it very clear that Clojure is, and will always be, a simple language. Minimal syntax, very condensed and short API, no types. That simplicity, when comparing to other functional languages, makes it relatively easy to learn Clojure.
Yes. I strongly recommend to start with Clojure ( just start with the basic REPL - it provides tight feedback loop and helps to “feel” the language). Clojure is a dialect of Lisp.
Clojure and Python can be primarily classified as "Languages" tools. "It is a lisp", "Concise syntax" and "Persistent data structures" are the key factors why developers consider Clojure; whereas "Great libraries", "Readable code" and "Beautiful code" are the primary reasons why Python is favored.
There are some big ideas in there - that may not be apparent until you're familiar with implementing a LISP.
So even before you look at the Clojure code - you might want to look at the code for a basic LISP implementation (there are heaps online - this is one of my favourites).
Next I'd read a book like Christian Quinnec's Lisp In Small Pieces (LISP) which is a book about implementing LISP compilers - to get the paradigms.
In terms of actually starting in the Clojure source - I'd start with eval - here.
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