@ibdknox: you definitely need to get this project on kickstarter (to fund the work on an open source implementation ideally) it could really change the way people approach software development and Clojure in particular. The ideas you're presenting aren't necessarily new, but if they didn't caught on was more due to being done at the wrong time or the wrong way. I could definitely see you being able to pull it off!
The idea is great, but the implementation is totally broken presently. I tried two times with "Montreal, QC" as a query, the first time it returned only result from London (UK) and the second time only Philadelphia (PA).
HACKER [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A person who enjoys learning the details of programming systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically, or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value (q.v.). 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. Not everything a hacker produces is a hack. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; example: "A SAIL hacker". (Definitions 1 to 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to discover information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker". -- The Original Hacker's Dictionary
Edit: I didn't downvoted you, I think people were a bit unfair, but I wanted to point that the word hacker already had a variety of meanings even 30 years ago.
It seems to really be "naive" (although native is also correct) as it's what the readme and Github description also says. Moreover it's a very simple compiler for now, translating only a small Clojure subset without any optimizations.
Is Clojure core project management frustrating for small contributors? Definitely! I also think that would be the case for most similar projects.
We must not forget that Clojure is a very young language. The core team is still getting used to running a project of this nature while continuously improving it. Also the recent move from Assembla to JIRA clearly doesn't help for now, but I'm confident that things will get more streamlined in the ((hopefully) near) future. I've personally stopped trying to contribute to core/contrib because of the slow process and JIRA (which I've not spent time learning yet (not even sure I've got the right permissions)) so that I can concentrate on libraries. One thing that is really annoying tough is that the whole patch submission process must go through the centralized issue tracker, bypassing github which I think is much better for smaller changes (and even getting quite good for the whole process).
P.S.: One sure thing is that Lau is always good at driving traffic to his blog! ;-)