2013/9/26 Marc Feeley <feeley@iro.umontreal.ca>

On 2013-09-26, at 11:34 AM, Caolan McMahon <caolan.mcmahon@gmail.com> wrote:

> gsc -:s filename.scm
>
> and for interpreter:
>
> gsi -:s filename.scm
>
> ...recently had to figure this out myself :)

This only contributes to my belief that noone reads documentation anymore...

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/doc/gambit-c.html#index-define_002dsyntax

Well, that's not entirely true -- I've read a lot of documentation before
I dared to post. I've googled for many variations of "gambit scheme define
macros" and "gambit scheme syntax case", and it either directed me
here http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/doc/gambit-c.html (without
pointing to the particuar node -- which might be significant, as the
document consists of 21 chapters), or here
http://prael.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/r5rs-define-syntax-macros-in-gambit-scheme/
(which doesn't mention the case for the compiler), or to some mailing
list archives (which were difficult to digest)

The node you've pointed to is in section 6.3 "Miscellaneous extensions" (of chapter "Scheme extensions"), together with e.g. "vector-copy". Since syntax-rules are described in R5RS, I wouldn't ever think that it might be regarded as an extension to Scheme. Furthermore, I don't know what could be the reason for making the macro feature switched off by default, so it would never come to my mind that it must be switched on explicitly.

Perhaps if the table of contents of the documentation was a little bit more detailed, or if the documentation was generated as one node per page (so that google could index it with more precision), the chances of finding a particular information would increase.

Anyway, I'm really glad that I wrote, because you've helped me so quickly, and so I'm grateful :)

Thanks!
M.