Re: [Chicken-users] Bug report: low-level macros vs. variables in csi

[Felix Winkelmann]

From: John Cowan <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: [Chicken-users] Bug report: low-level macros vs. variables in csi
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 12:47:11 -0400

> Felix Winkelmann scripsit:
> 
> > > Proposed course of action: have the interpreter check whether an
> > > identifier is the name of a macro and signal an error rather than using
> > > any existing definition.
> > 
> > No, bad idea. 
> 
> Okay, how about a sentence saying why it's bad?  I'd like to put this
> on the wiki somewhere, so other people don't fall into the same trap.
> 

Macros are not first class, like procedures. Low-level macros
in general do not actually fit that well into Scheme's semantics.
This situation is slightly less problematic in Lisp-2's (which
still has the same problem). Note that chicken (the compiler)
does complain when you define a global variable withn the same
name as a macro.

Macro-expansion is a preprocessing step, a compiler pass so to
speak - not a runtime thing.


cheers,
felix