Is Apache Commons a part of the standard Java programmer toolkit these days? This looks like it would be a good addition to the standard platform classes for things like strings and XML. I've been away from Java for years now, but Clojure is bringing me back into the JVM world.

Apache Commons is very widely used.

Very similar to my case. I have always hated Java (I still do). But it seems I have to do some minimal mucking around with Java since I am going to use Clojure for some serious projects soon.