3 ms·
That's fine; I prefer the latter. Maybe I'm wrong. But if I am, it's not because I don't understand how macros are actually implemented in the real world, as ev
by reitzensteinm 8y ago
That's fine; I prefer the latter. Maybe I'm wrong. But if I am, it's not because I don't understand how macros are actually implemented in the real world, as everyone in this massive thread seems to assume.
I regret my initial comment, which was written in haste. Had I known the sheer volume of people that would jump out the woodwork to demonstrate their superior technical knowledge while avoiding the argument I was actually making, I'd have been a lot more careful about what I was trying to communicate (or more likely not have bothered, which would have saved us all a lot of time).
That is where the "smug lisp weenie" trope comes from, and it's real. I don't know what it is specifically about lisp that brings it out; I can't imagine having this discussion about C#, TCL or SQL.
- lispm 8y agoPeople with a bunch of Lisp experience have responded to what you wrote and disagreed. That's all.
- reitzensteinm 8y agoLike I said previously, I don't believe being an expert automatically makes you a good teacher. Based on the responses in this thread, I doubt anyone here is actually good at it. Were I disagreeing technically, it would be a different matter and I'd have long ago hit the books to see where I fucked up. The combined lisp experience on this thread is at least an order of magnitude more than mine, and most of you are probably smarter than me to boot.
- lispm 8y agoand I doubt your claim, that extending a meta-circular toy interpreter with some remotely macro-like feature will help any Lisp beginner to understand Lisp macros. There is already a bunch of good material out there, teaching the use of Lisp macros for both beginners and for medium-level users. Advanced-level users will find a lot of teaching&research in the Scheme literature/... Paul Graham himself has written a good and well-known book on it. it does a good job explaining macros and their use. It's called 'On Lisp' and there is no need to replicate its content here. Now we have gone full circle, again.
- reitzensteinm 8y agoYeah, there's no point continuing this discussion. Thank you for taking the time to reply in depth to my posts even though we could not find common ground.
- lispm 8y agoExcellent response. Thanks!
- kazinator 8y agoIf you tell students that Lisp macros are for delaying evaluation, you're a lousy teacher. Someone in the class will Google you out, send a few instant messages to a few others, and soon nobody will take your class seriously. A good teacher is engaging and glib, and tells the right sorts of little lies at the right times to lead students through the steps of "Wittgenstein ladders"; but he or she can't be flat out wrong about the subject material.
- reitzensteinm 8y agoYeah, I'm not going to take teaching advice from a person that walked me condescendingly step by step through an example to point out an inconsistency that wasn't there because they misunderstood what I was saying. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯