Re: [Scheme-reports] auxiliary syntax

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 4:11 PM, Eli Barzilay <eli@x> wrote:

On Friday, Alex Shinn wrote:
> I've implemented several hygienic macro systems from scratch and
> studied several others. I program exclusively with hygienic macros,
> and for a long time have been advocating people switch as well since
> as we both know you can't mix hygienic with unhygienic.

OK, I should be impressed, I assume. I have written a phd
dissertation on quotations, and had a very detailed explanation on
various options including using flat strings. Does that get you
impressed enough to assume that when I talked about strings it was a
bit more than being unaware of the advantages of sexprs?

Again, I'm sorry you took my comment personally - I was

just frustrated that I should have to argue against using strings

at all. I retracted it before, and I ask again, please forget it.

I have no intention of bragging - that little bio was made in

defense because you accused me of not understanding either

hygiene or scope, and implied this would affect the R7RS

standard. Most ad hominem attacks I try (and sometimes

fail) to ignore, but such an implication left unreplied could cause

a loss of confidence. Some people might even get the

impression that I was one of those defmacro hold-outs, when

nothing could be further from the truth.

I went to a tech talk by the creator of stack overflow once,

and he talked a lot about developing a good culture that

encourages learning and effective communication while

reducing noise. He talked about a number of different

technologies organized around discussions, from old BBSes

to usenet to wikis. As an example of usenet he showed a

post, and then the reply which was the typical quote/reply,

quote/reply style we're used to breaking the post into points,

and attacking every one. Each reply began with "this is

wrong" or "this is nonsense" and went on to explain why,

but the big picture was lost and it just reduced to a matter

of who was better at debating.

Usenet is all but dead, but this style of arguing persists in

many mailing lists, and is a terrible way to have a discussion.

That tech talk really made an impression on me about how much

time I've wasted arguing via mail.

Not that I'm accusing you of doing this (at least in the post I'm

replying to) but I'm wary of such a situation occurring, so I'm

not going to address the rest of your post via mail. Rather

I'll summarize the issues as best I see it for both sides via

the wiki.

Alex