do...until wisdom needed...

[Douglas Alan]

grey at despair.rpglink.com (Steve Lamb) writes regarding procedural macros;

> IE, make your own dialect.

Make your own dialect, no.  Make your own embedded language, yes.
But libraries can act as embeded languages too.  Without the support
of macros, however, the syntax to use them is sometimes painful.

"Extending" a language does not imply changing the semantics of the
language that is already there -- it means just what the word
"extending" means: adding new features to a language that were not
there previously.  The old features are still there unperturbed,
exactly as they were before.  The only change to the language is that
new syntactic forms have been added.  If you don't use the new
syntactic form, just as if you don't use new functions that someone
defined, you'd never know that they were there.

> To me it is deserved.  You know why?  I'm a out-and-out prick. 

> Sit down.
> Shut up.
> Read.
> Learn.

I know one thing for sure: I know more about programming languages and
programming language design than you do or ever will with your
attitude.  Regarding listening to Alex, I'd listen to him if he
weren't also a prick.  I'll tell you who I've listened to quite
carefully: Guido, who has a lot of good ideas, and the designers of
Lisp (eg, Dave Moon, John McArthy, Guy Steele, all of whom I've met
personally), who are far smatter than you, me, or Alex will ever be.
If you want me to shut up, read, and learn, I recommend that you take
your own advice, and read and learn what they have to say.  They
embody a lot of wisdom that you are willing to dismiss with a wave of
your tiny little wand.

I have nothing more to say to you.  You are a prick and a
self-admitted one.  Have a nice time with your Perl projects.

|>oug