3 ms·

Python is not as flexible as Lisp in a manner of AST manipulation

• smitty1e 7y ago
  Python's approach seems to be: expose functionality like the AST for the 31337 ninjas that really want to go there, while maintaining intense focus on producing a KISS tool for the other 95% of its audience.
  • jacobobryant 7y ago
    A lot of (most?) of the benefit of macros comes not from writing them yourself, but from using macros that others have written. Even if only 5% of the people are writing macros, that 5% likely includes many library authors. Making it harder for them impacts their downstream users too, even if those people aren't actually writing macros. IMO the macros in Clojure make it easier for library authors to produce KISS, high-level interfaces for the rest of us.
  • TeMPOraL 7y ago
    This ultimately impacts code quality negatively. Macros aren't a tool "for the 31337 ninjas", not more than class inheritance or generic types, or hell, even procedures. Macros solve a particular class of problems - they eliminate bloat and boilerplate, allowing you to express your code closer to the way you think about it. Much like classes can be used as data transfer objects or to build out a large inheritance tree, macros can be used tactically - to DRY up things you otherwise couldn't, or introduce some readability improvement - or strategically, to lift the code up another layer of abstraction, or create DSLs that let you write your code much closer to the problem domain. Because Lisp supports them in an ergonomic way, macros are not seen as something special, but just another tool in the toolbox.