[plt-scheme] Macros in other programming languages?

From: Ivanyi Peter (pivanyi at freemail.hu)
Date: Wed Jun 27 07:24:03 EDT 2007

Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk at cs.brown.edu> írta:
> None provide anything remotely similar to PLT Scheme's
macro system.
> (That's why all these macro-using folks are using PLT Scheme!)

Fully agreed. However I would like to make a comment, for
which I may
be stoned to death. :-) 
(Anyway, I am looking at things from the point of view of a
practitioner
and not always a theoretician(?).)

I have used and use C heavily and C have a "macro" system.
The ANSI
C version of the macro system is dead simple, however if you
use the
GNU extensions in gcc you can do some very nifty things. (I
am not sure,
but maybe the latest ANSI standard for C made some
modifications for
macros as well, but gcc definitely did.) On the other hand
if you write
functions with macros in C and there is a problem you are
stuck and you 
have to get back to plain old functions.

In conclusion "None provide anything remotely similar to"
Scheme or Lisp. (For which statement I may be killed for a
second time on this
list. :-) )

Best regards,

Peter Ivanyi


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