DIP 50 - AST macros

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2013-11-14 19:23, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> FWIW Walter talked me back around 2005-2006 into abandoning my own ideas
> about languages with configurable syntax.
>
> There are quite a few failings about comparing programming languages
> against natural languages, but here's one that I think does have value:
> fixed syntax is ingrained into people's notion of language, and swapping
> syntax within an otherwise identical linguistic context is extremely
> taxing on the brain. Anyone who's read with a C or C++ codebase full of
> macros and #if-driven code can attest how unbelievably difficult
> juxtapositions of the normal syntax with preprocessor syntax can quickly
> become. That's part of why "static if" has been so successful in D - it
> drives new semantics but within the same syntax.

AST macros cannot change the syntax or introduce new syntax. C 
preprocessor macros and AST macros are not the same. I'm starting to 
regret that I called it "macros".

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg