[racket] Best Way to Really Understand the Compilation and Execution Model?

For that, you could have Arc's `define' expand into both a Racket
`define' and a `define-for-syntax', which I believe is what Jens was
suggesting. You may want to do something similar for `require', too.

Vincent



At Mon, 5 Aug 2013 10:06:36 -0700,
Nick Sivo wrote:
> 
> I'm aware of defmacro and even understand its implementation (cute
> trick!), but I need to eventually get something like this to work:
> 
> (require compatibility/defmacro)
> 
> (define (my-cdr lst)
>   (cdr lst))
> 
> (defmacro drop-first-form args
>   `(begin ,@(my-cdr args)))
> 
> (drop-first-form
>  (displayln 1)
>  (displayln 2))
> 
> Where the above just works and displays 2.
> 
> I'll check out the latest research papers too.
> 
> Thanks,
> Nick
> 
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 1:40 AM, Noel Welsh <noelwelsh at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Does defmacro do what you want?
> >
> > http://docs.racket-lang.org/compatibility/defmacro.html?q=defmacro#%28form._%28%28lib._compatibility%2Fdefmacro..rkt%29._defmacro%29%29
> >
> > In terms of grokking the macro system you probably want to read some of the
> > research papers, which you can find from links here:
> >
> > http://racket-lang.org/people.html
> >
> > Racket's macro system is really cutting edge, so it doesn't have a large
> > body of text explaining it.
> >
> > HTH,
> > N.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 9:50 PM, Nick Sivo <nicksivo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello everyone,
> >>
> >> I work on Hacker News[1], which is written in Arc[2], and am tasked
> >> with making it faster.  The Arc compiler targets Racket[3], but
> >> doesn't do so in such a way that function names or source locations
> >> are preserved.  This makes output from the sampling profiler and error
> >> messages mostly useless.
> >>
> >> I'd like to make Arc work as a Racket language (and in the process
> >> preserve srclocs and names), and have made some progress[4].  However,
> >> I'm hitting a wall trying to implement Arc's macros.  Specifically, I
> >> need to find a way for the macros themselves to use previously defined
> >> Arc functions as part of their processing. I understand that there are
> >> good reasons for Racket's hygiene and syntax phases, but I'm
> >> implementing an existing language that has its own strong opinions.
> >> I'm almost certain that accomplishing my goal is possible with the
> >> right understanding, but despite reading much of the Racket Reference,
> >> I don't truly get it yet.
> >>
> >> With that motivation in mind, what's the best way for me to become
> >> intimately familiar with Racket's runtime, execution and compilation
> >> model? Should I read through and make sure I understand the debugger?
> >> The macro stepper?  Is there any kind of guide to Racket Internals?
> >>
> >> Thanks for any advice.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Nick
> >>
> >> [1] https://news.ycombinator.com
> >> [2] http://arclanguage.org
> >> [3] Well, really mzscheme
> >> [4] https://github.com/kogir/rark
> >> ____________________
> >>   Racket Users list:
> >>   http://lists.racket-lang.org/users
> >
> >
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