Panicz Maciej Godek <godek.mac...@gmail.com> writes: > 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. An identifier macro would be even better, but it's still not first class.
> 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. If you, or the other people who are confused by syntax-case, can point to the parts of the manual that confuse you, so we can clear them up, I think we'd all appreciate it. Fundamentally, syntax-case shouldn't be harder to use than define-macro 99% of the time, if you remember - macros are functions from "syntax-objects" to syntax-objects - syntax-objects are smart symbols - syntax->datum to remove the smartness - datum->syntax is for when you want to break hygiene (but syntax parameters are better where applicable) - use quasisyntax to construct lists of syntax-objects instead of quasiquote to construct lists of symbols. > The main problem with syntax-rules/syntax-case macros is > the treatment of ellipses, which makes it difficult to create > macros that create macros. You can expand into ellipses with (... ...), it's ugly, but it's there. > 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) Indeed, I wasn't sure whether or not I should have mentioned it, but I was told this is the "correct" name for that feature on comp.lang.scheme a while back. I think it might have been Will Clinger, but I'd need to double check. -- Ian Price -- shift-reset.com "Programming is like pinball. The reward for doing it well is the opportunity to do it again" - from "The Wizardy Compiled"
