On 12-Oct-2001, Jerzy Karczmarczuk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > They [macros] are heavily used in Clean, so, there *are* people > who see a need for them in a lazy language.
Well, that depends on what you mean by "macros". Clean's "macros" have essentially the same semantics as inline functions, don't they? If I understand correctly, the denotation semantics of Clean's macros is exactly the same as ordinary functions, the only difference is that operationally they are guaranteed to be inlined. So, unless I'm missing something, they are just an efficiency hack, and one which is already looking somewhat dated -- a bit like the "register" keyword in C. This is quite different to the kind of macros that would allow you to extend the language syntax to support things like arrow notation or views. -- Fergus Henderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | "... it seems to me that 15 years of The University of Melbourne | email is plenty for one lifetime." WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | -- Prof. Donald E. Knuth _______________________________________________ Haskell mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell