4 ms·

I was not aware that unquoting in Common Lisp can be applied to data. So it is not a specialized sub language just for macros, but a general purpose template sy

• kazinator 6y ago
  That's right. There is no difference between: (defmacro my-quote (x) `(quote ,x)) and (defmacro my-quote (x) (list 'quote x)) That `(quote ,x) is just way of writing (list 'quote x), not a notation for writing macros. That's it.
• ywei3410 6y ago
  It's really a shorthand for writing lists - sexp's are lists, so can use the same syntax. Macro's in Lisp are essentially "just" functions where the arguments are un-evaluated - you can use all the same functions etc... Writing a simple Lisp interpreter is really quite educational - when you add macros and quoting into the language, you suddenly have a realisation at how simple it is.