Some easy ones (?)

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

    CL has thus far avoided most prescriptive style issues.

This is not a prescriptive style issue per se.  It is a question of
whether we should add a complex epicycle to the language in order to
accommodate a style that some of us think is worthless at best and
confusing at worst.  I don't think the language spec should go out of
its way to stop you from using a confusing style, but I don't think it
should bend over backwords to make this possible.

This has come down to a matter of taste.  I think that you're asking for
an ugly exception in order to support a deeply bogus piece of
programming style; you think that this is not an exception, but
recognizes some "difference" between LET* and other forms such as LET
and LAMBDA, and you also think that this funny use of LET* is more
obvious than the equivalent form using SETQs or nested LET's.

OK, since it's a just a matter of design taste -- we both agree that it
will work either way -- I'll propose both alternatives and we'll see
what the technical committee decides.  I think we've stated our
respective cases at sufficient length.

-- Scott

P.S.  Just so nobody gets the wrong idea from your humorous comment: I
don't prefer SETQ to LET without regard to context.  I do prefer SETQ to
LET when you are in fact successively "refining" a particular value.
There are times when you want to rebind, but if you're diddling around
with a value the way you seem to be, SETQ works just fine.