Torsten Anders wrote:
On the other hand, I actually very much like the idea of saving the
amounts of typing. But if it requires to extend the core of Oz itself,
then I would opt for the big change, i.e. for introducing something like
Lisp macros instead. With such a means, everyone of us can then easily
tailor the Oz syntax according needs.
Yes, I know that Denys gave that a go and it was turned down in the end.
I also know that macros are a two edged sword: no first-class values,
makes debugging harder etc.
Nevertheless, what Denys did is still there
(http://www.mozart-oz.org/documentation/macro/node1.html) and even still
works in 1.3.1. Something like this would really save me tremendous
amounts of typing at times. I am not using it, though, because I expect
this functionality be broken at any time.
Wouldn't it be worth discussing macros for Oz again?
It is not public, but at UCL we are thinking about it. But we are not
satisfied at all with what Denys proposed. We want to be able to extend
Oz with something that still looks like Oz. We want something like
unless X<Y do {Show X} {Show Y} end
instead of
<<unless X<Y {Show X} {Show Y}>>
We have a student who is currently working at macros that allows to
define something like the first alternative. He even consider macros
with a recursive definition! This is extremely elegant for defining
loops. He defines a while loop more or less as
MACRO while Cond do Body end
if Cond then
Body while Cond do Body end
end
You don't need to know how to manipulate the syntax tree of your program
with such a definition. This part is done for you.
Cheers,
raph
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