Comment 5 for bug 620579

upgradability is trivial: (delete-package "ASDF") should remove all traces of ASDF.
now you can just (load (compile-file "asdf.lisp")) and be done.

nevertheless, asdf should aim not for "constant upgradability" but for "eventual stabilization".
people do not upgrade their gnu make to the latest version before they can build a package.
make is stable, like bash or ls. it is there.

similarly, asdf should stabilize _soon_. instead of maintaining "constant upgradability".
new features are fine, but they should be usable without breaking previos versions.
e.g., (defsystem .. :initially-do) should produce a warning that some arguments were ignored
and not a total failure.

basically, if you want asdf to be distributed with implementations, this calls for stability.
if you want constant upgrades, there is no point in distributing asdf with implementations:
people will have to get the bleeding edge version anyway.

what symbols are you binding in let which can produce warnings/errors?
I am afraid that you are caught in the same "legacy support" trap which (in mk:defsystem) prompted Dan to write asdf in the first place.
I think asdf2 is the right moment to remove the cruft accumulated in 8 years.
You might even want to rename asdf to hjkl (or qwer or zxcv) for that :-)

I do not see asdf-devel on gmane.org, so, please, start the discussion there without waiting for me.