Jeremy Bowers wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 12:59:07 -0800, Robert Brewer wrote:
You know, Guido might as well give in now on the Macro issue. If he
doesn't come up with something himself, apparently we'll just hack
bytecode. I'm not sure that's a gain.
I think that this sort of thing is better to have as an explicitly risky hack, than as an endorsed part of the language. The mere fact that this *is* something that one can clearly tell is working around certain deliberate limitations is a big warning sign, and it makes it much less likely to be used extensively. Relatively few people are going to want to use something called "bytecodehacks" in a mission-critical piece of software, compared to the number who'd be perfectly happy to use a language's built-in macro facilities, so at least it keeps the actual usage down to a somewhat more manageable level.
To rephrase this a bit more succinctly ;) there's a big difference between having no practical way to prevent something, and actually encouraging it.
Jeff Shannon Technician/Programmer Credit International
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