Re: Macros and anonymous functions

[Paul Prescod <address@hidden>]

Bruce Lewis wrote:
> 
>....
> 
> This assumes the macro expands to a block of statements.  If it expands
> to an expression that might be nested in another expression, you would
> have to either allow nesting of the def within the expression or have
> the macro expander pull all necessary defs out to before the enclosing
> statement, giving them unique names as necessary.  Having anonymous
> functions would make the macro expander implementation simpler and more
> understandable.

Python has anonymous functions. They have some syntactic limitations
that make them less powerful than Lisp's. Most Python programmers
consider that a good thing. By definition, you wouldn't add a macro
feature to Python without adding syntax. Therefore the syntactic 
limitations of Python's anonymous function syntax would be irrelevant.

 Paul Prescod