[gambit-list] Module System start up announcement

David Rush kumoyuki at gmail.com
Mon Mar 17 16:33:15 EDT 2008


On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 1:57 PM, Joel Borggrén-Franck <
joel.borggren.franck at gmail.com> wrote:

> "and have discussed why hygienic macro systems rename symbols and that
> when using namespaces in the symbols, this might be enough as "rename"
> means, thus providing nice integration with preexisting
> namespace-using Gambit code."


Well, that's what I'd call a viable engineering solution, but I doubt that
it truly solves the problem.
Macros can capture names even within a single namespace, can't they?
However, by reducing the number of symbols in the namespace (since core
Scheme has only one), you reduce the probability of capture - assuming that
names are randomly distributed in the space of all possible identifiers.

Which of course they're not. But that doesn't mean that ny controlling the
boundaries of the problem that it doesn't become easier to write real code.
I think that long experience is showing that hygienic macros are great, but
they don't really serve as a practical substitute for the ability to break
hygiene when necessary. And frankly, good old define-macro is hard to beat
for that, no matter how groovy syntax-case appears to everyone.

I'm not really sure why I responded here, maybe it's just the effects of 3
hours of sleep in the last 36 :)

Long live define-macro!

david rush
-- 
Once you label me, you negate me
- Soren Kierkegaard
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