why does the process dictionary have a bad rep?

[Matthias Lang]

Valentin Micic writes:

[about the process dictionary]
 > has to reply with message. What are the limitations of dictionary, and *why*
 > it received a bad reputation?

In addition to the points already made, another reason is that a
significant proportion of those who haven't seen single-assignment
before will seize upon anything which "finally lets me assign to a
damn variable like I want to", and the first 'anything' they usually
encounter is the process dictionary.

(ab)using processes and message passing to achieve the same effect at
least has the side effect of teaching them about message passing. 

Matthias