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I think this makes my point perfectly. With macros, I can write a short macro regardless of how the upstream code behaves. Without macros, I can request a chan

• lamontcg 5y ago
  You can get macros out of rust or julia or other languages other than LISP as well. It is also arguable that overuse of macros leads to less readable code since you wind up inventing your own personal language the more you do it, which requires more of a learning curve to work on it. There's a large advantage to sticking with verbose idioms that are common and built out of a relatively few building blocks rather than building a meta-language which is terse. At the same time I'm not saying don't have macros, but they should really be reserved for more extensive heavy lifting, not a pile of tiny ones used all over the codebase to make it terse. A well written codebase should read more like Hemmingway at an 8th grade reading level using simple constructs from the base language which are put together, generally using programming design idioms which are common and terminology which everyone shares. There shouldn't be a lot of "what does this macro do and where it is it defined?" questions on every other line.