Syntax-rules Primer for the Merely Eccentric

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hipster/lib/scheme/gauche/define-syntax-primer.txt

by fogus • 17 years ago

21 7 17 years ago

jcw• 17 years ago

I've read this and various other scheme macro tutorials and still can't make sense of them. There's still a lot going on in the background with hygenic macros, basic tutorials won't teach you how to write even simple ones on your own.

PLT seems to document them well from the ground up: http://download.plt-scheme.org/doc/html/guide/macros.html

esessoms2• 17 years ago

I was in the same boat until I finally read this (chapter 8):

http://www.scheme.com/tspl3/

Scheme may be simple, but scheme macros are not. They go way overboard in trying to protect you from yourself. I'm glad to see Arc moving back in the direction of CL macros, which I think makes it a very interesting alternative to Scheme.

tumult2• 17 years ago

Most Schemes give you define-macro (and gensym), which is the same as CL macros. Bigloo, Chicken, and some others even have hygienic macros off by default due to the overhead, and recommend that you use define-macro whenever possible.

I usually use a mixture of both. define-macro for when I'm just trying to kill some repetition without an obvious functional composition solution, and define-syntax for when I'm laying serious groundwork functionality.

micheles• 17 years ago

Joe Marshall's essay is very good, but if you want to start from something simpler consider http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~micheles/scheme/TheAdventuresofa...

Syntax-rules Primer for the Merely Eccentric

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