issue PROCLAIM-ETC-IN-COMPILE-FILE

[franz!fiseqs!feast!smh@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Steven M. Haflich)]

Although few people liked DEFPROCLAIM, I advocate reconsideration.
The suggested alternatives appearing at top level of a file are
neither clear nor do they evince any connection with related forms in
the language.  A word containing "proclaim" or "proclamation" is clear
about having to do with PROCLAIM.  Just as important, the "DEF" prefix
associates this symbol with the other CL DEF* forms, all of which are
macros and all of which appear (always, or at least usually, depending
on other votes) at the "top level" or "global" scope in lisp files.
None of the other words carries all this useful information.

There is a reason INCF isn't called "INCREMENT."  Few people known the
derivation of the "F" suffix, but everyone knows it denotes a macro
that side-affects its first argument.

Therefore I advocate either DEFPROCLAIM or DEFPROCLAMATION.  Even if
they are a little ugly and not very witty, either is immediately clear
even if one has not been told what they do.

====================

The despairing novice approached the master and asked: "Is it too late
to put a little consistency into Common Lisp?"  The master replied:
"Of course not, but it's far too late to put very *much* in."