4 ms·

It's like you didn't read the previous poster: They're claiming lisp macros can work BEFORE the compiler generates an AST.

• TylerE 6y ago
  Yes, it's the same in nim. For instance, see this example which defines a compact definition syntax that is certainly not valid vanilla nim: https://peterme.net/metaprogramming-and-read-and-maintainability-in-nim.html https://peterme.net/metaprogramming-and-read-and-maintainabi... Refer to lines 63-88 of the large final example.
  • ori_b 6y ago
    And if I wanted to make 'for' into a valid variable name, or change the tokens for specifying numbers, for example, how would I go about doing that?
    • TylerE 6y ago
      Easily. The macro gets handed the ast of the input. It can interpret it however it wants. There are no reserved words or anything like that. Much of nim is implemented as macros, just like most lisps
      • ori_b 6y ago
        The lisp macros run before the AST exists.
  • junke 6y ago
    Ok this is nice but you this would be rougly the same in Lisp, apart from AST constructors ("newIdentNode()",...), which would simply be backquote/unquote. Plus you have to write enumInfo[0], enumInfo[1] instead of pattern matching.