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Why named LET anyway?




 At the risk of beating a dead horse...

As a programmer who daily hacks in Scheme, it is
indeed useful to have LETREC, LET*, named-LET ...
but as a student in the MIT Intro. Programming
course years ago (6.001) I was always contented
with mere LET and internal DEFINE. I was never
confused and, although I noticed that frobs like
named-LET save on average 15-20 keystrokes, I did
not feel an unquenchable desire for a cliche macro.

Why exactly do some of you find it necessary to
teach your students about these variant forms?
Couldn't an argument be made that it is better to
teach a minimum of mechanism to a student and save
the niceties for ``professional'' programmers?
Unless your course purports to teach ``profession''.

This is not intended as a flame... I hope to learn
something by your replies.
				~Ziggy

P.S. Note that SI&CP do not mention LET* or LETREC
     or named-LET, yet many consider it a good book.