Subject: Re: Are macros really a neccessity, or a coverup of language deficiencies?
From: rpw3@rigden.engr.sgi.com (Rob Warnock)
Date: 2000/04/24
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <8e0c83$332om$1@fido.engr.sgi.com>
Courageous  <jkraska1@san.rr.com> wrote:
+---------------
| In lisp, I've found that macros are outright mandatory when you want
| to pass of a &rest form to a function which expects that &rest form
| as not a list.
+---------------

Sorry, macros are not "mandatory" at all for doing that. There's a
straightforward functional way to do it.

+---------------
| Actually, if there's a way of doing that *without* macros, I sure
| would like to know about it.
+---------------

It's called "apply". See: <URL:http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/
reference/HyperSpec/Body/fun_apply.html>


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 41L-955		rpw3@sgi.com
Applied Networking		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		Phone: 650-933-1673
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.		PP-ASEL-IA
Mountain View, CA  94043