[Python-Dev] defmacro

[Greg Ewing]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> This doesn't feel right to me.  By that argument, people would want
> to "improve"
> 
>   (mapcar (lambda (x) (car x)) list-of-lists)
> 
> to
> 
>   (mapcar list-of-lists (x) (car x))

I didn't claim that people would feel compelled to eliminate
all uses of lambda; only that, in those cases where they
*do* feel so compelled, they might not if lambda weren't
such a long word.

I was just trying to understand why Smalltalkers seem to
get on fine without macros, whereas Lispers feel they are
needed. I think Smalltalk's lightweight block-passing
syntax has a lot to do with it.

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
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