That is true. Coming from Ruby world, you find that Java and the Clojure world have a lot of rough edges. But Clojure makes things as easy as possible. For example, reading from a file or a URL is still (slurp "https://"). It works fine on a stock OSX, Java 8 sdk and the latest clojure. Don't let such minor inconveniences discourage you from exploring Clojure/ClojureScript. The language is fascinating. I feel that learning and practicing clojure has made me a better developer.