RE: Macros Make Me Mad

["Herchenroeder, Thomas" <address@hidden>]

Anton van Straaten on 16 November, 2002 04:13:
> So the question becomes, if macros are a dangerous feature in a
> "discipline-imposing language" or a "pack-programming 
> language", how should we respond to that?  By eliminating macros entirely
from 
> those languages, or by controlling them somehow?
> ...
> So, if the reasons aren't technical, but more managerial (or 
> whatever), then surely they can be managed managerially, with a little 
> technical help from the language?

Aggreed. In an industrial project, it is very unlikely to *not* have a
chief, i.e. a project leader, who, hopefully, is both technically and
managerially savvy. From a group of, say, 20 developers she would pick 2 or
3 skilled ones to write the macros that all others are going to use
throughout the project. Depending on the rest of the pack she might allow or
disallow "local" macros any developer is free to create for his own code.

The language in use would support the creation of macros in general, allows
for selective expansion to support policies (like "expand macros imported
from official macro library A, but no local macros") and would make it a
breeze to debug code that uses macros (like stepping into macro expansions
or over them).

=Thomas