time of evaluation

[mips!escargot.earl@glacier (Earl Killian)]

    Date: Fri, 17 Jan 86 19:28 EST
    From: Daniel L. Weinreb <glacier!DLW@SCRC-QUABBIN.ARPA>
    ...
    (1) The files being compiled see an empty Lisp environment when the
    compilation starts.  The Lisp environment that called compile-file is
    untouched.
    ...
    Personally, I would find style (1) to be painful and inconvenient even
    if my machine could switch to a new Lisp environment in two nanoseconds,
    because I want the compilation to see the state in my Lisp environment.
    Think of people who define their favorite macros in their init files,
    who would then have to create some sort of "compiler init file" to set
    up the compilation environment for all of their programs, as a simple
    example.

It is annoying to start out in a empty environment, but it is the only
way you'll get people to write portable stuff.  If compiling a file
something implicitly depends on their favorite personal macros, then
nobody else can use it.  On the other hand, all that's required to
live with the empty compiler environment is (REQUIRE DLW-DEFINITIONS).
You just get in the habit of putting that in every file you create...