I spent a lot of time trying to find a pretty optimal (for me) setup for Clojure… at the same time I was trying to dive in and learn it. This is never optimal; you shouldn't be fighting the environment while trying to learn something.
I feel like I went through a lot of pain searching Google, StackOverflow, blogs, and other sites for random tidbits of information and instructions.
This is a comprehensive "what I learned and what I ended up doing" that will hopefully be of use to others and act as a journal for myself if I ever have to do it again. I want to be very step-by-step and explain what's happening (and why) at each step.