Xref: utzoo comp.lang.lisp:4539 comp.lang.scheme:2021 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!mintaka!ai-lab!zurich.ai.mit.edu!markf From: markf@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Mark Friedman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme Subject: Re: Scheme as an Algol-like, not Lisp-like, language Message-ID: Date: 27 Feb 91 17:17:20 GMT References: <1991Feb15.191259.20090@aero.org> <1991Feb15.223520.17267@Think.COM> <1991Feb18.191549.7575@aero.org> <1991Feb19.030719.1137@Think.COM> <4234@skye.ed.ac.uk> jaffer@gerber.ai.mit.edu (Aubrey Jaffer) writes: I find when reading common-lisp code that I often don't know if a user defined symbol is a macro or a function. I find when reading code that I often don't know what a procedure does or what its arguments are supposed to be. My point is that there are other things that one needs to know in order to understand code. The issue of whether that a combination is a macro call or a syntactic form or a procedure call is only one of them. If a syntactic construct provides a programming paradigm not already supported by scheme then it should be added to the language. You've obviously never been to a Scheme standards or RNRS meeting :-) Seriously, macros ARE a way to add to the language. Procedures are another. Why discriminate against one of them. -Mark -- Mark Friedman MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab 545 Technology Sq. Cambridge, Ma. 02139 markf@zurich.ai.mit.edu