I'm not familiar with MacWire, but I believe it's powered by macros. You can think of a macro as a function that runs at compile time. It's input is a syntax tr

I'm not familiar with MacWire, but I believe it's powered by macros. You can think of a macro as a function that runs at compile time. It's input is a syntax tree representing some code, and it's output is an arbitrary syntax tree representing code. The compiler, while processing source code, will recognize places where a macro should be invoked on some syntax. It will call the macro on that syntax, then replace the syntax with the output of the macro. In this sense, you can imagine a macro that takes in the source code for a class that has wire calls, and rewrites the wire calls into object constructor calls based on introspection of the syntax and types in the class. If you're familiar with C macros, they are technically the same kind of thing, although very basic, error prone, and unpleasant to work with. If you want to learn more about macros, I would recommend starting with a simpler, more sane macro system like one in Scheme, or, if you want something that looks more like Java, Nemerle (http://www.nemerle.org/About http://www.nemerle.org/About). Scala's macro system has a bit of a bolt-on feel since the language wasn't designed from the ground up for macros. That said, I applaud Scala's effort to try to figure out how to integrate macros into their core language and hope they are successful in the future with Scala Meta (http://scalameta.org/ http://scalameta.org/)