2013/9/10 Ian Price <ianpric...@googlemail.com> > > I have a few notes unrelated to those I've already mentioned in the > thread. > > 1. Guile already has curried definitions in (ice-9 curried-definitions) > > Yes, but those are completely different. I wouldn't call "define-curried" a curried definition, but a definition of a curried macro for generating procedures.
> 2. By turning your functions definitions into a macro, you've lost the > ability to use them in a first class manner. > > That's not entirely true. I just need an extra pair of parentheses to do so. The semantics is certainly different than the one of Guile's curried definitions, but that's fine. > 3. I would strongly recommend _not_ using define-macro, and even more > so, not mixing define-macro and syntax-rules in a macro. Syntax-case is > as powerful as defmacro, and in most practical cases, about as much > writing. > Well, while syntax-rules macros are quite easy to understand (at least from the user's point of view), although sometimes a little tricky, the syntax-case system I find still too difficult to use. define-macro, on the other hand, is very easy to explain even to beginner programmers, although the resulting macros are much more difficult to analyse. The main problem with syntax-rules/syntax-case macros is the treatment of ellipses, which makes it difficult to create macros that create macros. Still, I didn't post to comp.lang.scheme for no reason :) 4. What your macro does is not currying, it is partial > application. Those are different things. Currying refers to the process > of turning a function of n arguments into an n-nested set of 1 argument > functions. Partial application is, well, not supplying all the arguments > to a function. You can have partial application without currying, as > your macro shows. > OK, you got me here. But it's still difficult for me to come up with a good name for that macro (and if so, the Guile's curried definitions are not curried either, at least in general: because you can (define ((f a b) c d) ...), getting a chain of 2-argument functions) Thanks, M.
