[racket] letoverlambda

I've only skimmed/sampled some of On Lisp, and even less of Let Over
Lambda. But the main theme of both seemed to be: Macros are an
important higher level of programming, but under-appreciated,
under-utilized, under-understood (stood?), and "under-booked". Hence
these books.

Anaphoric macros are deliberately unhygienic. But I didn't get the
impression that all or even most of the macro techniques were
unhygienic. Am I wrong and didn't get deep enough into the books?  To
put it another way, is the negative reaction here due to him dissing
hygiene, or is it reflective of a deeper and broader disagreement with
the entire approach of putting macros on a pedestal?

BTW I'm asking this innocently, genuinely not knowing the answer,
curious what more experienced people think.

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 10:53 AM, Carl Eastlund <cce at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Hendrik Boom <hendrik at topoi.pooq.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 08:42:57AM -0500, Shriram Krishnamurthi wrote:
>>> I haven't seen this book mentioned here before, so:
>>>
>>> http://letoverlambda.com/
>>>
>>> It is, well, a very particular perspective on things, but I've heard
>>> people speak well of it.
>>
>> It looks interesting.  Very unSchemeish, though.  Chapter 6, on
>> anaphoric macros, seems to celebrate unhygienicity.
>>
>> -- hendrik
>
> The following passage is particularly unsettling.
>
> "Even the vast majority of Scheme systems, the platform that has
> experimented the most with hygiene, provide unhygienic defmacro-style
> macros—presumably because not even Scheme implementors take hygiene
> very seriously. Like training wheels on a bicycle, hygiene systems are
> for the most part toys that should be discarded after even a modest
> level of skill has been acquired."
>
> --Carl
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