that's beyond a real stretch - is XSLT a LISP then? simply using YAML (or json or any equivalent data/markup syntax as the basis for a DSL syntax does not make

that's beyond a real stretch - is XSLT a LISP then? simply using YAML (or json or any equivalent data/markup syntax as the basis for a DSL syntax does not make it homoiconic. in this case, the very rigid structure of playbooks and tasks, etc. within YAML is also part of the syntax. just the fact that you can generate arbitrary YAML (or json or etc.) from within a copy utility does not come close to homoiconicity of a LISP. can you effortlessly move back/forth from data to code? is everything both code and data at the same time? what's the Ansible equivalent to quasi-quote, for instance? is a bash script that sources (or creates or evals) a list of variable assignments in bash syntax homoiconic? due to eval, bash would seem a hell of a lot closer. and those really aren't "syntactic macros" either, unless you'd be happy to define an MS-DOS .bat file that generates and calls a .bat file fragment "syntactic macros". it's using an external file ffs. Ansible is good for what it does, but it has an extremely limited and rigid "flow-control" (if we can even call it that) and is more of a declarative language/config file than a general language. this represents a pretty naive superficial understanding of these LISP features. points for making us think though.