Recursive Compilation?

[Jim Kempf <kempf%hplabsc@hplabs.HP.COM>]

In the process of bringing up CommonLoops, we ran into an interesting
issue regarding the compiler. We would like to require CommonLoops
at compile time, so that we don't have to build it into the
compiler but just have it around when we're compiling something.
However, it compiles something at load time (immediate reason not
apparent, possibly for speed, also maybe something doesn't work
interpreted). This causes the compiler to be invoked recursively,
which signals an error. I can't find anything in CLtL to indicate
that compilation SHOULDN'T be recursive, but the environmental
problems with making it so would seem to be pretty hairy (another
set of bindings for variables in compiler-let?, etc.). Does
anybody have any comments?
		Jim Kempf		hplabs!kempf