Re: [Chicken-users] macro systems and chicken (long)

[John Cowan]

Alaric Snell-Pym scripsit:

> > I think quite otherwise: I would never write a macro in any system
> > other than syntax-rules -- all other macro systems strike me as
> > standing on a foundation of quicksand.
> 
> Oooh, interesting!
> 
> Pray tell?

I suppose that syntax extension is one thing, arbitrary compile-time
programming is another.  It's useful to be able to express common
patterns directly in the language, but I don't see the point of
running code in the compiler, which is a rather constrained
environment.

> My position, I suppose, is that I'm personally quite interested in
> quite complex macros. Such as, for example, ones that implement quite
> different programming languages by really being a compiler from them
> into Scheme...

In such a case I would write a compiler in Scheme directly,
using the run-time facilities rather than macros, and either
compile or interpret the result.

In short, I'd rather have a pipeline of program transformers rather
than a multi-phase monolith.

-- 
John Cowan
        address@hidden
                I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin