deps.edn isn't solving the same problem as lein. Lein you install it, run "lein" and it starts telling you what to do to get a running Clojure project.

Deps you install Clojure and ... no hints how to get to a running project.

"touch deps.edn"? Still no hints how you get from here to functioning clojure dependencies. It isn't a YAML file. Isn't JSON. No template.

Read the reference page (https://clojure.org/reference/deps_and_cli)? We quickly learn that you can execute a function by invoking "clojure [clj-opt] -X[aliases] [a/fn] [kpath v] kv-map?". Still not much closer to installing a dependency, a lot of people probably give up here.

Oh, there is a guide! Read the guide (https://clojure.org/guides/deps_and_cli). Now we get to our first dependency.

Lets add a 2nd one!

    {:deps
     {com.github.seancorfield/next.jdbc {:mvn/version "1.3.834"}}
     {clojure.java-time/clojure.java-time {:mvn/version "1.1.0"}}}

    $ clj
    Error building classpath. Error reading edn. Map literal must contain an even number of forms (~/deps.edn)

This is a pretty plausible on-boarding with deps. Beginners should be using lein, it is a lot more forgiving and doesn't leave people staring at an error message feeling stupid after 10 minutes being confused about what the docs are trying to prepare them for. It'd be good to include something like that in the default distribution so they don't have to figure that fact out by failing a bit with deps.

Yeah this is grim.

There is https://github.com/practicalli/clojure-deps-edn which solves this but it’s not linked to from any official docs which seems a miss to me. As well as the config and full documentation, it also comes with a video walking you through a demo of all the features.