Re: Modula-2 generics, exceptions, and optional parameters - how widely supported?

[Alice Osako]

I was going to write a long diatribe on the subject of 
textual-replacement macros vs. lexical macros, but none of that is 
really relevant. I don't especially like the idea of embedding 
preprocessor directives in comments,  but it is what is available so it 
will have to do.
I'm not entirely comfortable with using an external preprocessor that is 
not part of the language standard (the way cpp is for C and C++ - I have 
my issues with the execrable design of cpp itself, but that's not the 
point), though the situation isn't really any different from using a 
3rd-party library. I will see what I can do using M2PP.
Regarding exceptions, the need to test for them would only come up in 
ISO code, so the section for handling those assertions could be gated off.
As for optional parameters, I have only one use case for that in this 
instance and can work around their absence.