3 ms·

I read the defmacro link and found it very interesting and cool; but I still feel as if I'm missing what makes this so earth-shattering? Do not get me wrong - i

by stnmtn 4y ago

I read the defmacro link and found it very interesting and cool; but I still feel as if I'm missing what makes this so earth-shattering? Do not get me wrong - it is insanely cool and wonderful to be able to modify lisp's syntax with lisp... but it just seems like that... it's cool. I don't see why this would be any different than defining a function like I normally do. Sure, I can create an entirely new operator that becomes valid syntax, like `*` which creates an exponential operator. But why is this more productive than simply defining a "exponent()" function or something similar? It seems also that tech debt would accrue incredibly fast as joining a lisp codebase would require learning almost an entirely new set of syntax. I'm sure I 'm missing something, but I can't see at all why I need to learn LISP. It's cool, neat, and wonderful... but that's about it from my understanding.

dunefox 4y ago
It's not easy to get the point across just by reading about it. Id honestly say you should just learn some lisp and implement something cool. > I don't see why this would be any different than defining a function like I normally do. Because with functions you don't define any new syntax or implement a DSL; you don't have access to the compiler during read, compilation, and run time. This allows you to easily extend the language: do you miss list comprehensions from Python? Add it yourself with a macro. Want to generate boilerplate code? Macro. Prolog compiler? Yes. Basically anything in this book: https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp > But why is this more productive than simply defining a "exponent()" function or something similar? It's not just about defining a new operator, you can basically implement a DSL with C-like syntax if you want to: https://github.com/y2q-actionman/with-c-syntax https://github.com/y2q-actionman/with-c-syntax

by stnmtn 4y ago

dunefox 4y ago

It's not easy to get the point across just by reading about it. Id honestly say you should just learn some lisp and implement something cool. > I don't see why this would be any different than defining a function like I normally do. Because with functions you don't define any new syntax or implement a DSL; you don't have access to the compiler during read, compilation, and run time. This allows you to easily extend the language: do you miss list comprehensions from Python? Add it yourself with a macro. Want to generate boilerplate code? Macro. Prolog compiler? Yes. Basically anything in this book: https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp https://github.com/norvig/paip-lisp > But why is this more productive than simply defining a "exponent()" function or something similar? It's not just about defining a new operator, you can basically implement a DSL with C-like syntax if you want to: https://github.com/y2q-actionman/with-c-syntax https://github.com/y2q-actionman/with-c-syntax