There are only, I think, four reasons for making things a macro rather than a function. The one that seems to apply to the ns macro is that it saves typing -- that is, you don't have to sprinkle quoted symbols everywhere. And you can ignore the difference between lists and vectors.
Compare... (ns my-name-space (:use [their-name]) with this... (ns 'my-name-space [:use ['their-name-space]]) The disadvantage is that the ns macro is not extensible (not strictly a consequence of it being a macro, but in practice it is so). So I wrote a new namespace declaration that was a function. This lets me program the ns declaration so, for example, I can share a set of imports between namespaces. https://github.com/phillord/namespace-experiments/blob/master/src/namespace/examples.clj Not a serious project, and just something I was playing at, but I still think that the idea is sound (unlike the implementation). Phil Angel Java Lopez <ajlopez2...@gmail.com> writes: > Hi! > > My first guess: a normal function evaluates all its arguments. ns uses > (:require ....) (:use.. ) (:import ..) that should be not evaluated at ns > apply. The alternative is to make ns an special form, but macro should be > more flexible. > > Instead, in-ns is simpler, and it can be implemented as a normal function. > > Angel "Java" Lopez > @ajlopez > > > On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 5:30 AM, Petr <petrg...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hello. >> >> Does anyone know why clojure.core/ns macro is not implemented as function? >> It seems that it should work that way except that probably it would be >> nicer to have in-ns call at the top level. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Clojure" group. >> To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com >> Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with >> your first post. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Clojure" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> -- Phillip Lord, Phone: +44 (0) 191 208 7827 Lecturer in Bioinformatics, Email: phillip.l...@newcastle.ac.uk School of Computing Science, http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/phillip.lord Room 914 Claremont Tower, skype: russet_apples Newcastle University, twitter: phillord NE1 7RU -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
