Brian Sniffen wrote: > On Dec 28, 2007 6:05 AM, Andrew Coppin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [I actually heard a number of people tell me that learning LISP would >> change my life forever because LISP has something called "macros". I >> tried to learn it, and disliked it greatly. It's too messy. And what the >> heck is "cdr" ment to mean anyway? To me, LISP doesn't even seem all >> that different from normal languages (modulo weird syntax). Now >> Haskell... that's FUN!] > > Contents of Data Register. > > Macros are like Template Haskell. One example of where they're useful > is programmer definition of new binding forms. That's not possible in > Haskell without Templates. Macros were invented in Lisp because the > syntax is so easy for machine manipulation---they don't have a tenth > the complexity of Template Haskell for about the same power. > > -Brian >
There is also Likell, at http://liskell.org/ by Clemens Fruhwir, which translates Haskell source into a lisp style prefix syntax (will (all (the (parentheses)))). This is to allow macro-like analysis and transformation without template haskell. The main use of template haskell that I have seen mentioned on the mailing lists is to analyze a "data" declaration and auto-generate some new "class" and "instance" declarations. But I agree that template haskell has problems: (*) Its own syntax, as big and complicated as Haskell (*) Has historically been very poorly documented (that _might_ have changed) (*) Only works with ghc -- Chris _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
