Re: need for macros (was Re: Icon)

[Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <address@hidden>]

   From: Matthias Felleisen <matthias@ccs.neu.edu>
   To: paulgraham@yahoo.com
   Cc: ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu
   Subject: Re: need for macros (was Re: Icon)
   Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 14:41:43 -0500 (EST)
   
   
   Scheme 84 had this, and I don't see why this isn't in most Lisps. 
   
   Still, I believe that some features should not be in programming languages
   because neither the designers nor the super programmers nor the average
   programmers know how to reason about them systematically. I have come to
   believe that 3D macros are one such thing. They co-mingle two radically
   different phases: compilation and execution. You cannot possibly deploy a
   program that is expanded like that on a different machine. The very idea
   doesn't make sense. I guess in short, I believe in the strict separation of
   passes. Otherwise I am open to pretty much everything :-) 

And some people prefer not to commingle the functional,
lambda-calculus part of a language with the parts that
do side effects.  It seems they believe in the separation
of Church and state.  :-)  :-)  :-)

--Guy