Re: my latest blog post

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi Catonano,

Catonano <address@hidden> writes:

> I just published my latest blog post
>
> In this post I discuss Guix
>
> And I discuss Guile too
>
> I understand that the language is strong and I expect someone to be upset
>
> But I feel this is due
>
> Happy reading
>
> http://catonano.v22018025836661967.nicesrv.de/the-gnu-community.html

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this.  I wanted to apologize
for making you feel badly; it honestly was not my intent to shame you in
any way.

To be honest, I felt a bit defensive when you seemed to contradict my
claim that 'macroexpand-1' would be difficult to implement in a modern
Hygienic macro expander, when you pointed to the Racket documentation
and asked (possibly rhetorically) whether Racket had hygienic macros.
What felt to you like "slight shaming" might have been somehow related
to my feeling defensive about this.

My lack of response until now to your most recent message in that thread
was not because my "patience was exhausted", as you wrote, but only
because I'm stretched far too thin, and I haven't yet figured out how to
respond to your last message.

I simply don't have enough time for all of the things I'd like to do, so
many important things get dropped on the floor.  I respond to user
questions and bug reports sporadically, when I have the time and energy
to do so.  It's nothing personal.

For what it's worth, I think that your line of questions about
'macroexpand-1' was perfectly reasonable, and neither worthy of shame
nor of feeling like an idiot.  The details of modern macro expanders are
quite difficult, and I suspect that even seasoned Scheme hackers rarely
understand them in depth.

     Regards,
       Mark