GNU bug report logs - #76132
Clojure-style auto-gensyms for macros

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: Tassilo Horn <tsdh <at> gnu.org>

Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2025 21:13:02 UTC

Severity: wishlist

Tags: patch

Done: Tassilo Horn <tsdh <at> gnu.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

Full log

Message #81 received at 76132-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Monnier <monnier <at> iro.umontreal.ca>
To: Tassilo Horn <tsdh <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 76132-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Stefan Kangas <stefankangas <at> gmail.com>,
 Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
Subject: Re: bug#76132: Clojure-style auto-gensyms for macros
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:19:53 -0500

Tassilo Horn [2025-02-23 10:11:08] wrote:
> Stefan Kangas <stefankangas <at> gmail.com> writes:
>> So what's the conclusion here?  
> Macros (in the presence of eager macro expansion) are hard. :-)

Historical notes about "eager macro expansion":

- Macros have been expanded eagerly in Emacs since the introduction of
  a byte-compiler, i.e. before even Emacs-18.
- Macros are designed specifically to allow "eager macro expansion".
  In early Lisp there was another mechanism which supported only lazy
  expansion, called [fexpr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fexpr).
  They died because of their fundamental incompatibility with compilation.


        Stefan
This bug report was last modified 147 days ago.

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