Brian Harvey scripsit:
> I know everyone disagrees with me about that, but isn't it how we Lispians all
> feel about requiring variable type declarations? Macro hygiene -- just listen
> to the sound of the name, for heaven's sake! -- was and is supported by
> arguments not so very different from the arguments for type declarations.
[snip]
> P.S. Yes, I do understand that hygienic macros can be viewed as a virtually
> inevitable extension of Scheme's jewel-like lexical scope. That's the only
> benefit of being old; I can now see more than one point of view about things.
Indeed. How much better it would have been if hygienic macros had been
called "lexically scoped macro parameters" to begin with. How simple
the argument: "Our procedure parameters are lexically scoped, but our
macro parameters are still dynamically scoped, even though they don't
superficially appear to be. Let's fix that." Everyone would have nodded
their heads and gone back to working on their all-day suckers.
--
Let's face it: software is crap. Feature-laden and bloated, written under
tremendous time-pressure, often by incapable coders, using dangerous
languages and inadequate tools, trying to connect to heaps of broken or
obsolete protocols, implemented equally insufficiently, running on
unpredictable hardware -- we are all more than used to brokenness.
--Felix Winkelmann
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