I've struggled with jogl as well. Clojure being hosted is a definitely a double-edged sword; while it makes it possible to use something like jogl, actually doi

I've struggled with jogl as well. Clojure being hosted is a definitely a double-edged sword; while it makes it possible to use something like jogl, actually doing so can require you know something (or a lot of things) about the underlying platform. The questions you raise here are real issues. I've been able to scaffold things for newcomers to the language in the past, but I can easily imagine how they could go off the rails without some guidance. I believe that the new "deps.edn" mechanism is meant to be the official, paved path for dependency and platform interaction in the future. But until everybody is using it, there will be two ways of doing things and the confusions that goes with having a choice. Perhaps it's necessary to move the platform forward.