RE: '#:foobar versus (make-symbol "FOOBAR")

[Kevin Gallagher <Gallagher@gilgamesh.cs.umass.edu>]

    From:      dmg@goldilocks.LCS.MIT.EDU

    Btw, you're assumptions about what compilers do may or may not be wrong
    depending on a number of things such as OPTIMIZE declarations and
    implementation specific features.  MACL, for example, can optionally save
    local maps.  
    
True.

    1) Obviously, run time code won't be using the local maps.
    
    2) Why do you think the compiler considers uninterned symbols 
       to be different than any other symbol with respect to local bindings.
    
A typical use of uninterned symbols is to name a macros hidden locals.
So it seems to me like a reasonable thing for the compiler to do.  I
tested this by running an example on two lisps that were close at hand
(MACL wasn't one of them), and they behaved as I described.  This is
admittedly shakey ground.

Kevin Gallagher