From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: Are macros really a neccessity, or a coverup of language deficiencies? Date: 2000/04/28 Message-ID: <3165894081922447@naggum.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 616670106 References: <390371F0.36455F4E@makif.omer.k12.il> <3165647335532305@naggum.no> <3907660B.CCA3ECD2@yahoo.com> <1e9pulo.1ueryh2128131kN%bparsia@email.unc.edu> <3907FD4A.D138F88D@yahoo.com> <3908D64D.C42DCE6E@yahoo.com> mail-copies-to: never Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 956905291 12458 195.0.192.66 (28 Apr 2000 07:01:31 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; vox: +47 8800 8879; fax: +47 8800 8601; http://www.naggum.no User-Agent: Gnus/5.0803 (Gnus v5.8.3) Emacs/20.5 Mime-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Apr 2000 07:01:31 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Peaker | I find it a lot more readable, too, don't you? sorry, no. I find the object model extremely constraining, just like infix syntax is simple and compact for severely constrained contexts and circumstances. once you leave the constrained world, you have to _fight_ both of these premature optimizations by going "underneath" their expression and thinking very carefully about what they do because it will be uncommon to leave the constrained world, and this is itself partly because it is painful to leave it. (sort of like Tom Breton and his "optimization" for fewer levels of code transformation still thinks he has to do with macros. competent programmers gain a deep trust in their ability to deal with such abstractions and do not fear localized and contained complexity, except that both the object model and infix syntax _export_ their complexity so you have no choice but to rub against the constraints when using either.) #:Erik