Issue COMPILER-LET-CONFUSION, v3

[Jon L White <jonl@lucid.com>]

re:  But don't flush it [COMPILER-LET]
    unless you have clearly demonstrated that it is in fact useless (and
    the fact that some reasonably well informed people don't agree that it 
    is useless means that such demonstration has not occured).

I don't accept this as an adequate criterion.  If in fact a facility is
poorly documented because it is poorly conceived, and if it generates
immense confusion in the user community, and if there are alternate ways 
of accomplishing the same effect,  and if it is seldom used because of 
the aforementioned shortcomings, then it ought to be flushed.  [#, is one 
such facility even though there is currently no alternative; we hope to 
replace it with the much better and well-thought-out LOAD-TIME-VALUE]

COMPILER-LET has abundantly been demonstrated to generate immense
confusion in the user community.  And the fact that its defenders have
*no* convincing examples where this construct is either critical
or suprememly better than the alternatives means it is simply a
confusing hack.  It's rare uses hardly justify its enormous drawback. 

"Reasonably well informed people" have upon ocasion been know to 
succumb to a hack.


-- JonL --