On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Daniel Weinreb dlw@itasoftware.com wrote: [re: Let Over Lamba]
This is an interesting and original book. The techniques he likes, including "anamorphic macros", have generally been frowned upon by the community.
I don't understand why anaphoric macros are so frowned upon. Like any powerful tool, it's easy to construct pathological situations where they make code more difficult to understand. However, I feel that when tastefully used, they enhance the expressiveness of the language, readibility of code, and they can help to reduce the verbosity of CL of which many outsiders complain. Of course, the prior two sentences apply just as well to macros in general as they do to anaphora.
(I remember an interesting paper by Todd Proebsting advocating anaphoric features for languages, which is evidence that it's not just those out-of-control Lispers who lust after these features: we just get what others dream.)
Cheers,