[plt-scheme] What is all the fuss about how you can write DSLs in Lisp?

Yes it is very open ended. I have read about macros and understand
them in fact, but not in practice. In other words, I've read about
them, written a very simple macro, but haven't got that real world
experience where it is obvious to me how to take advantage of them.
That gap is still present.

That said, when I think of a DSL think about letting folks write
"programs" like:

"trade 100 shares(x) when (time < 20:00) and timingisright()"

When I think about syntax transformation in Lisp I think primarily
about language features.

On 6/6/07, Matt Jadud <jadudm at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Grant,
>
> That's kinda a large, open question.
>
> Bill Clementson posted a whole screencast that dances around this
> question some time ago:
>
> http://bc.tech.coop/blog/050711.html
>
> Actually, Paul Graham's "Beating the Average" is another story about
> LISP and DSLs (sorta, mostly, ish):
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
>
> If those don't start you on the road to answering your question, or
> you want to know more, I recommend diving into places like
> readscheme.org or the ACM Digital Library. Read about how the macro
> systems work and the kinds of things you can do with them. Then, think
> about how you'd do the same thing in Language X, and you're 90% there.
> (There are people on this list who could point you to more specific
> papers, but if you're completely at a loss as to why the Lisp family
> of languages are so powerful for this kind of work, then those papers
> won't help you at this stage, I suspect.)
>
> My apologies if you were asking a more subtle question. However, it
> seems like you are new to  hygenic macro systems and the language
> family in general.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
>
>
>
> On 6/7/07, Grant Rettke <grettke at acm.org> wrote:
> > What is all the fuss about how you can write DSLs in Lisp?
> >
> > Everyone from thought-leaders to blog-posters to grandma's are talking
> > about how Lisp is so great for DSLs.
> >
> > About what are these people talking about? Because no one of said
> > people actually elaborate on any of this, of course, which leads me to
> > question their claims.
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