From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 56727BC8B for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:32 +0100 (CET) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j1EEaVcJ002791 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:31 +0100 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA15693 for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:31 +0100 (MET) Received: from mail.physik.uni-muenchen.de (mail.physik.uni-muenchen.de [192.54.42.129]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j1EEaUCp003803 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=FAIL) for ; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:31 +0100 Received: from localhost (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by mail.physik.uni-muenchen.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 764272003F; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:30 +0100 (CET) Received: from mail.physik.uni-muenchen.de ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.physik.uni-muenchen.de [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 07412-01-13; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:28 +0100 (CET) Received: from mailhost.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de (kaiser.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de [141.84.136.1]) by mail.physik.uni-muenchen.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6674720029; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:28 +0100 (CET) Received: from eiger.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de (eiger.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de [141.84.136.54]) by mailhost.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B5B726E87; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:28 +0100 (CET) Received: by eiger.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de (Postfix, from userid 3092) id 2A2C53D96; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:27 +0100 (CET) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by eiger.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 015432D717; Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:27 +0100 (CET) Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:27 +0100 (CET) From: Thomas Fischbacher To: Stefan Monnier Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Re: The boon of static type checking In-Reply-To: <87ll9rz0n2.fsf-monnier+gmane.comp.lang.caml.inria@gnu.org> Message-ID: References: <877e9a17050206221653d14456@mail.gmail.com> <20050213112630.73930e19@hobbes> <877e9a1705021312525337a907@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a1705021314512ff095b9@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a1705021316114d4e10f0@mail.gmail.com> <877e9a170502131711122bd34e@mail.gmail.com> <20050214014624.EF42F9BDAB@orchestra.cs.caltech.edu> <87ll9rz0n2.fsf-monnier+gmane.comp.lang.caml.inria@gnu.org> X-BOFH: Daemons did it MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at physik.uni-muenchen.de X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 4210B76F.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 4210B76E.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 wrote:01 syntax:01 expansions:01 syntax:01 ad-hoc:01 notations:01 compiler:01 cip:98 cip:98 lambda:01 lambda:01 arbitrary:01 parsed:01 checking:01 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Level: On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > But S-expressions are arguably the best syntax for writing macro > > expansions. Since an S-expression is trivially parseable and dispatches on > > That's exactly where syntax is important: depending on your syntax some > things are easy/concise and others aren't, so people end up adapting a very > different programming style. It doesn't mean that one syntax is > intrinsically better than another, but just that syntax does matter. Macroexpansion - if done properly - is done at the level of parsed trees. Hence, yes, it does matter if this is obscured by syntax or not, that is: whether your language does provide a special "mostly arbitrary" syntax or whether it does not. Superficial differences in various ad-hoc notations, say "{}" vs. "BEGIN/END" and such, by far do not matter as much as questions whether there is a machine code compiler available, or whether memory management works in a proper way. -- regards, tf@cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de (o_ Thomas Fischbacher - http://www.cip.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~tf //\ (lambda (n) ((lambda (p q r) (p p q r)) (lambda (g x y) V_/_ (if (= x 0) y (g g (- x 1) (* x y)))) n 1)) (Debian GNU)