Re: Looking for new language features

mq@maq.org (Michael Quinlan)
11 Sep 2000 02:17:55 -0400

          From comp.compilers

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[6 later articles]
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From: mq@maq.org (Michael Quinlan)
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
Date: 11 Sep 2000 02:17:55 -0400
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 00-08-13000-09-048 00-09-075
Keywords: design, macros

Randall Hyde <rhyde@cs.ucr.edu> wrote:
>Let me offer the following suggestion (which, undoubtedly, will raise
>some red-flags with the anti-macro crowd): write a decent preprocessor
>for C/C++ that gives you a compile-time language that lets people
>create their own extensions to the language...


The very well know problem with that approach is that when the next
person comes along to maintain your programs, he or she has to learn
your private programming language. And they usually have to do it
without the benefit of manuals, classes, etc; just access to the source
for your macros.
--
No electrons were injured in the preparation of this message.
Michael Quinlan mq@maq.org http://www.maq.org
[That's why the extensible languages of the 1970s all died, too. I can
report from experience that figuring out the syntax du jour wasn't fun.
-John]





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