Re: [Chicken-hackers] plain lambdas as syntax transformers

[Jörg F . Wittenberger]

On May 13 2013, Peter Bex wrote:

> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 10:44:53AM +0200, Felix wrote:
> > Hello!
>
> Hi!
>
> > I know this is going to be controversial, but I'd like to un-deprecate
> > the use of plain procedures as syntax-transformers. The way it is
> > currently implemented, using a procedure can be seen as a simple
> > default (er-transformer). I find the use of transformer-constructors
> > clutters up the code, adds unnecessary typing and indentation, and is
> > more or less meaningless for newbies. 
>
> I'm a bit undecided about this.  I think you're right in that the
> additional typing is a bit pointless, considering ER transformers
> are the "native" system.
>
> However, it's confusing to newbies, you can't really explain what
> exactly er-transformer *does*.  Also, the extra typing isn't that bad
> and I'm not sure we should be subtly encouraging the use of ER
> transformers over IR transformers by making them less work to type
> (IR transformers are safer unless you know exactly what you're doing).

While I'm currently struggling and failing (at seen on chicken-users)
to replace something easily done in the unhygienic way with some portable
and hygienic code... I'd like to second Peters argument here.

One more identifier and indent level is not that bad.  (It could even
be avoided simply by a macro instead of the lambda keyword.)

But the subtle damage it does to the newbies brain when reading
existing code to learn… that's bad.

> Finally, I find that I don't tend to use that many macros at all, and
> if I use macros, they're usually syntax-rules unless I need programmatic
> generation of code, or if I need to break hygiene.  And then I tend
> to prefer IR transformers because they require less (r 'foo) nonsense.
> So er-macro-transformer is not something I use often, therefore I
> don't see much benefit in making it less work to type them in.
>
> Cheers,
> Peter