regarding the recent discussions i'm generally baffled why it is at
all a question whether to make a build software deterministic or not. in my view if there's anything in the global state that has an effect on the building of a software, anything, then it's a bug.
I think one question is whether it's worth taking a path to this goal that breaks programs that currently work. I don't think all such programs are bitrotted junk that can be fixed up in a day.
those programs that currently work will keep on working if ASDF is not upgraded.
no upgrade, no breakage.
to me it's a very strange argument that the right way to avoid breaking unmaintained old code is by hindering change that makes new things better in the future.
what's needed is people helping you Xach building, testing and maintaining quicklisp distros. i feel the frustration and i can understand it, becuase i remember how many times i backed out from a sprialing upgrade mess... and for you it's a regular TODO.
at one point i tried to build a ql distro locally to add and test a new project, but i didn't even have the bird's eye view, so i gave up. if there was a blog post or something then people may join the effort... but that's off topic here. i just wanted to let you know that your work on ql is appreciated, and that some people sometimes even try to help out with it that you may harness.