I've been advised that learning Java is necessary before diving into Clojure.
That was a bad advice. Learning Java would be helpful, but it's not necessary. And if you end up needing some Java, 95% of the time you need to know just the syntax, the behavior, and the specific functionality that you need - not the whole suite of things that Java offers in its standard library.
Java is vast and verbose, and mastering it can take years, not just a few months.
There's Java-the-language and there's its standard library. The first is not an ocean by any means - it's still larger than Clojure, but is definitely doable. You can get comfortable with all its main features in under a week.
And the standard library - just search online for a specific thing you need to do, when you need to do it. Knowing everything in advance would be helpful, but learning everything in advance is likely to be a waste of time.
Is it possible to effectively learn Clojure without a deep understanding of Java? Any tips or resources to achieve this?
I used the official reference, docstrings, the source code, and examples at https://clojuredocs.org/. Someone else would use books, tutoring, videos, etc. - it depends on what you prefer.
The first time I used Clojure in any serious capacity was to implement a take-home task at a job I was applying to. Ironically, the job was in Java and I didn't know Java, but they accepted solutions in any language. I haven't read or written a line in Java or even about Java in order to implement that task and get accepted.
