DIP 50 - AST macros

H. S. Teoh hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx
Thu Nov 14 13:34:19 PST 2013


On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 01:12:11PM -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 11/14/2013 11:40 AM, deadalnix wrote:
> >This is not proposing to configure syntax.
> 
> Right, it is about inserting arbitrarily different meaning into
> existing syntax.
[...]
> Now, let's take the AST macros, and pass it "4+3". Apparently is a
> feature that the macro can transform this to produce "hello" as the
> result. The result is that although the language looks the same,
> there is no "anchor" a person can rely on to indicate the meaning.
> The meaning of "fine" is reversed, so to speak.
[...]
> On the other hand, with string mixins, it is immediately obvious
> that one is dealing with different syntax, and so expect something
> different to happen.

What if macros adopted an overtly different syntax?


T

-- 
English has the lovely word "defenestrate", meaning "to execute by
throwing someone out a window", or more recently "to remove Windows from
a computer and replace it with something useful". :-) -- John Cowan


More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list