Chris Webb explains “let” expressions in M:
In the M language a let expression consists of two sections. After the let comes a list of variables, each of which has a name and an expression associated with it. In the previous example there are three variables: step1, step2 and step3. Variables can refer to other variables; here, step3 refers to both step1 and step2. Variables can be used to store values of any type: numbers, text, dates, or even more complex types like records, lists or tables; here, all three variables return numbers. The Query Editor is usually clever enough to display these variables as steps in your query and so displays then in the Applied Steps pane on the right-hand side of the screen
It’s a look at one of the fundamentals of an interesting language.