On Nov 23, 2010, at 5:38 PM, David Herman wrote: >> Is this like the difference between C's type system and ML's? > > No, maybe I wasn't clear. It's hard to come up with a precise definition of > the class of macros that John's talking about. When Matthias et al invented > hygienic macro systems, the idea was that the system would "get scope right" > (an intentionally vague phrase) by having the right defaults. But it's all > defined at the level of mechanism; no one's ever been able to identify actual > guarantees provided by hygienic macro systems.
Right! So we have a word--"hygienic"--which we can use to describe a set of macro systems, even though we can't precisely define which macro systems those are. I'm asking for another, different, word to use for those macros that would formerly have been described as "unhygienic"; for instance, the macro which wraps an expression 'M' in the context (let ([x 5]) []). I realize that this word wouldn't currently have a precise definition, but then, as you've pointed out, neither does "hygienic." John
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