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Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme

Pascal Costanza costanza at web.de
Thu Oct 9 09:59:24 EDT 2003 
Andreas Rossberg wrote:
> Dirk Thierbach wrote:
> 
>>
>>>> you can use macros to do everything one could use HOFs for (if you
>>>> really want).
>>
>>
>> I should have added: As long as it should execute at compile time, of
>> course.
>>
>>> Really? What about arbitrary recursion?
>>
>>
>> I don't see the problem. Maybe you have an example? I am sure the
>> Lisp'ers here can come up with a macro solution for it.
> 
> 
> I'm not terribly familiar with the details of Lisp macros but since 
> recursion can easily lead to non-termination you certainly need tight 
> restrictions on recursion among macros in order to ensure termination of 
> macro substitution, don't you? Or at least some ad-hoc depth limitation.

The Lisp mindset is not to solve problems that you don't have.

If your code has a bug then you need to debug it. Lisp development 
environments provide excellent debugging capabilities out of the box. 
Don't guess how hard it is when you don't have the experience yet.


Pascal

-- 
Pascal Costanza               University of Bonn
mailto:costanza at web.de        Institute of Computer Science III
http://www.pascalcostanza.de  Römerstr. 164, D-53117 Bonn (Germany)
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