What is the easiest way to load a clojure library all the time?

Question

A question from an utter newcomer to clojure: What if I want to be able to start a clojure REPL from anywhere, for example because I just want to compute an exponent? How can I set up my system to do this? (I've deleted earlier links to not-quite-answers because they were cluttering up the question.) The Pomegranate documentation linked by @Jared314's answer below helped me see that I can do this:

~$ lein repl
...
user=> (use '[cemerick.pomegranate :only (add-dependencies)])
nil
user=> (add-dependencies :coordinates '[[org.clojure/math.numeric-tower "0.0.2"]])
{[org.clojure/clojure "1.3.0"] nil, [org.clojure/math.numeric-tower "0.0.2"] #{[org.clojure/clojure "1.3.0"]}}
user=> (use 'clojure.math.numeric-tower)
nil
user=> (expt 2 3)
8

Yay!

Now how can I make this happen every time I start the REPL, no matter what subdirectory I'm in?

I think I'm just ignorant of basic clojure setup. Sorry about that.

Second major edit:

I've figured out that if I use raw clojure without lein, I can execute commands on startup of the repl. For example, if the file .clojurerc contains the text (print "Yow!\n"), I can do this:

~$ java -cp /usr/local/lib/clojure-1.5.1/clojure-1.5.1.jar clojure.main -i .clojurerc -r
Clojure 1.5.1
Yow!
user=> 

Can I do something like this with lein? Or maybe better yet, load clojure.math.numeric-tower automatically in clojure without using lein (since for simple command line experimentation, lein's startup is slower than starting clojure directly).

(It may seem as if I'm not trying to solve this on my own, but I that's not so. I have been doing web searches and experimenting, but I keep hitting brick walls. I'm starting to feel as if clojure is only intended for full-blown programming projects. I had assumed that it could be good for add-hoc experiments and calculations (as lisps traditionally are but Java is not). I'm not trying to incite arguments. I'm just frustrated. There ought to be a simple, well-known formula for doing what I'm trying to do.)

Answer 1

When you want external dependencies you will need either a new project, lein new testproject1, the lein-oneoff plugin, Pomegranate, a Leiningen profile :dependencies entry, or some specific IDE feature. (I know at least LightTable allows external dependencies in their Instarepl, so I assume you can do it in Emacs and CCW.)

It might be best to start with creating a new test project so you can see the project.clj layout. But, if you just want a one-off library in a repl, take a look at the instructions for Pomegranate's add-classpath command. Pomegranate is accessible by default in the lein repl, so their example should work without anything extra.

Edit:

From your updated question, it sounds like you want a persistent repl dependency. You can add [org.clojure/math.numeric-tower "0.0.2"] to your ~/.lein/profiles.clj profile file, under the :repl profile.

{:user {}
 :repl {:dependencies [[org.clojure/math.numeric-tower "0.0.2"]]
        :repl-options {:init (use 'clojure.math.numeric-tower)}}}

Then when you run lein repl:

(expt 2 3) ;=> 8