[NTG-context] Re: defining macros

[Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl>]

On 1/14/2025 6:50 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> Am 11.01.25 um 12:30 schrieb Hans Hagen via ntg-context:
>>> Sure.
>>> I’m proud to have found several features that you forgot about ;)
>>
>> ah, so you now make a nice certificate that you can put behind you 
>> when we chat
> 
> Will do ;)
> Do you also give out cheques? ;)

we might if we got them

> Back to macros (I read lowlevel-macros, at least tried to…):
> 
> While I liked \define, it looks like it just doesn’t make sense anymore 
> if I need (\tolerant)\def for anything advanced anyway?

\starttexdefinition

supports this

> You stress how costly named macros are – then we should forget about 
> MkLX mode?

i meant 'if supported by the engine' but mklx are only named when you 
define them adnm internalized as #1 ...

> Did I understand correctly, that bracketed = optional parameters is just 
> a convention, i.e. only the handling of arguments makes them optional, 
> not their definition/fencing?

indeed, you could also do

\tolerant\def\foo(#1){...}

> With \tolerant, we can not only forget about the last dodos (and even 
> single dos), but also about \dosingleargument & friends, right?
> Are there cases where the MkIV way still makes sense with LMTX?

only a few places (where we were too lazy to redo it) but eventually all 
will use the modern way ... if you see one and are annoyed you can tell 
me (HH & WS)

> When does it make sense to define macros in Lua (interfaces.implement)?
> Obviously, if I need calculations or I/O operations that are easier to 
> do in Lua. Are there disadvantages of Lua-defined vs. TeX-defined  macros?

it depends but i doubt if you will notice (often the performance hits 
are not where you think they are so one can occasionaly run into curious 
assumptions)

timing tex is kind of tricky because in a loop that does simple things 
cpu caching speeds up things contrary to doing things all over memory 
and code; anyway one avoids some tokenization when used right

if one noticed a bottleneck we can look into but as we don't get 
complaints i guess performance is ok

Hans

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