Michael Livshin wrote: > Paul Rubin <http://[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Nobody seems to concerned that Haskell lacks macros. What's up with >> that? > > Haskell is lazy, so it doesn't need macros
Outside Lisp, macros are for syntax. Evaluation semantics (e.g. lazy evaluation) then have nothing to do with macros. So Haskell being lazy doesn't obviate macros. You might still want to extend the syntax of Haskell, i.e. want macros. However, this is much less desirable than Lisp because Haskell already provides a wealth of powerful features and related syntax (e.g. pattern matching, comprehensions). I think this is an important point often missed by Lispers. > lazyness has a nontrivial cost, however, both runtime and cognitive. The main problem with lazy evaluation is unpredictable memory use. -- Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Objective CAML for Scientists http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/index.html?usenet -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list