Explanation of macros; Haskell macros

[Jesse Tov]

Kenny Tilton <ktilton at nyc.rr.com>:
> Jesse Tov wrote:
>> The existence of Template Haskell indicates to me that there are things
>> people want to do with macros that aren't reasonably done in Haskell.  I
>> don't even know if I've ever wanted to do these things, because people
>> rarely miss language features that they don't know.
> 
> A language feature is not worth having unless it meets a need which 
> exists independent of anyone thinking to create said language feature. 

Obviously--but that doesn't mean that what those features should look
like is obvious, or even that people always know that difficulties
they're having can be solved by a language feature.  Sometimes you don't
know you have a problem until you see the solution, but that doesn't
mean you didn't have the problem in the first place.

> If you follow links below and poke around the Cliki you can locate those 
> folks who got to Lisp via the Greenspun route in some way shape or form, 
> people who were trying to do Lisp, not knowing there was such a thing.

I was wondering who this Greenspun y'all seem to worship is, so I did a
Google search.  His list "nice languages" is "Haskell, ML, and Lisp".  I
doubt anyone is "trying to do Lisp" in Haskell.

Jesse
-- 
"A hungry man is not a free man."      --Adlai Stevenson