On 2013-11-14 19:23, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
FWIW Walter talked me back around 2005-2006 into abandoning my own ideas
about languages with configurable syntax.
There are quite a few failings about comparing programming languages
against natural languages, but here's one that I think does have value:
fixed syntax is ingrained into people's notion of language, and swapping
syntax within an otherwise identical linguistic context is extremely
taxing on the brain. Anyone who's read with a C or C++ codebase full of
macros and #if-driven code can attest how unbelievably difficult
juxtapositions of the normal syntax with preprocessor syntax can quickly
become. That's part of why "static if" has been so successful in D - it
drives new semantics but within the same syntax.
AST macros cannot change the syntax or introduce new syntax. C
preprocessor macros and AST macros are not the same. I'm starting to
regret that I called it "macros".
--
/Jacob Carlborg
