From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2006-08-09T14:05:00+09:00
Subject: Re: Language chatter

On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 01:56:14PM +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> >  
> With all of the rantings of the Lispniks about how wonderful Lisp macros 
> are, I've actually never seen what Rubyists refer to as "macros". Where 
> could I find that -- Ruby constructs called "macros" by Ruby programmers?

I'm no expert in the subject (haven't been so well-blessed as to be
working with a language that provides the mechanisms of proper macros
for most of my programming experience), but my impression is that what
differentiates a "proper macro" from . . . other stuff . . . is the fact
that with Lisp you can treat a collection of characters in your program
as a string, an array-like list, an atomic Thing, or code, all without
having to do any special gymnastics.  In other wrods, there's no
differentiation between code and data, as I understand it.

I at least know you can do such stuff, whether or not that's actually
the defining characteristic of Lisp macros -- but it sure seems like a
good point of differentiation from "other stuff".  I suppose Ruby's
macros must be similarly differentiated from other Ruby code.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
"Real ugliness is not harsh-looking syntax, but having to
build programs out of the wrong concepts." - Paul Graham