Re: [Chicken-users] define-syntax available *by default*?

[Tony Garnock-Jones]

Ed Watkeys wrote:
> Do you know of a practical introduction to syntax-rules? Lisp macros 
> have a big advantage over Scheme macros in that there seems to be a lot 
> more documentation available. I didn't have a preference, but I wound up 
> learning classic Lisp macros, because I could find many, good examples 
> to work from.

I can sympathise with that :-)

There are a couple that are reasonable (besides the definition in R5RS 
itself, which to me seems reasonably straightforward) - this link is for 
Al Petrofsky's "Advanced Syntax-Rules Primer for the Mildly Insane", 
which is probably too much detail to get started with but useful for 
really understanding the corner cases:

http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=87it8db0um%20fsf%20radish%20petrofsky%20org&safe=images&address@hidden&lr=&hl=en

and this link is for Joe Marshall's "Syntax-rules Primer for the Merely 
Eccentric" which is a more practical usable guide to the technology:

http://home.comcast.net/~prunesquallor/macro.txt

Of course, as you note, define-macro would still be available - either 
as a compatibility macro implemented using syntax-case, or as the Real 
Thing when an appropriate command-line option is supplied to 
csi/csc/chicken.

Tony