[racket] Macros as a first class objects?

From: Shriram Krishnamurthi (sk at cs.brown.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 13 21:25:02 EDT 2010

> I like lisp because it is almost free of syntax.

No, it's not.  It's the s-expression level that is almost free of
syntax.  At the level of parsing, there's quite a bit of syntax.

> If you think of it as a
> data format that can be used to define functions you see that there is no
> syntax - and if 'if' can apply at run-time, there's no reason not to
> (define (one-two f x)
>     (f x 1 2))
> (one-two + 3) ==> 6
> (one-two if #t) ==> 1

I think it's fairly safe to say that, at SOME point in his career,
such an example just may possibly have stolen across Matthias's mind
(-:.  You might learn more by thinking about why it is he rejected
this option, than by trying to sell him on it.

Shriram


Posted on the users mailing list.