> So far the arguments in favor of keywords like SRFI-177 are:
>
> - Performance
> - Programming in the large
> - Scripting

Sorry, I was being unclear. To me, standardization is the most important
argument. I don't personally care very much how the semantics are done
(hygiene, no hygiene, or both; allow-other-keys supported or not; what
kind of syntax to use). They main thing is that we pick some standard,
any standard, for the most basic stuff.

Programming in the large and scripting are mainly relevant because those
are the most obvious situations where people don't have enough time or
foresight to carefully design every detail of their program. So they
need some kind of hack that's not too much of a hack. That's kind of a
weird thing to put in a language, but all programs that grow beyond a
certain size need to use some features like that; if they don't come
from the language, they come from (slightly different, often
incompatible) libraries. Then debates are had over which library to
choose and how to make them interoperate. That's just the kind of debate
that's ideal to have in a language design group, and to avoid in an
application development project.