[r6rs-discuss] macroexpand

From: Jeff Read <bitwize>
Date: Fri Sep 22 14:37:21 2006

On 9/22/06, Dan Muresan <dan-r6rs_at_omnigia.com> wrote:

> In another post you mention that macroexpand can work for hygienic macros
> -- but two people have just concurred that this is not easy. Perhaps we
> can at least build consensus around define-macro and macroexpand...
>

I'm not certain that it's hard to *do*, I think it's just hard to
standardize in a way that doesn't involve specifying implementation
details that oughtn't be specified in a language that is supposed to
be amenable to experimentation with implementation strategies.

These days, however, the trend is more and more toward use of
languages which are specified by an implementation: Perl, Python, Ruby
-- so from an engineering standpoint you have a point.

I still think it's outside the scope of R6RS to specify an
implementation for macro-expansion.

--Jeff
Received on Fri Sep 22 2006 - 14:37:18 UTC