Macros -> declarations

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>]

We've kicked this idea around before in various forms, including the use
of some sort of syntactic marker on special bindings -- something like
turning FOO into $FOO if the variable is special, or treating the *FOO*
convention as being a declaration of specialness.  Other lexical Lisps
have done this sort of thing with no obvious ill effects (and arguably
some good effects), but it seems to have been too radical a change to
have been seriously considered by most of the Common Lisp people when
the language was being designed.  It would be even tougher now that the
langauge is starting to be used and assorted companies are rushing to
get implementations out.

Personally, I like the idea.  I've felt for some time that we ought to
separate SPECIAL declarations from all the others, even if that means
that Common Lisp ends up looking a little different from Maclisp.  But
we should only make this move so late in the game if just about everyone
else feels likewise.

-- Scott