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I've been thinking a bit about macros and what use they might be in Python. Basically, I was contemplating writing an import hook that would allow you to use code quoting and unquoting and stuff for your Python modules. My motive was just that Lisp people seem to rave about how awesome macros are all the time, so I figured they must be cool.
As I sat down to actually start figuring out what macro definitions and uses should look like in Python, I thought, hey, I'll just throw together a use case. But I haven't been able to come up with one (yet).
Most of the examples I found on the web focused on "hey, you can implement a 'while' loop with macros in Lisp!" or "hey, look at all the cool stuff the 'setf' macro can do!" So I started to wonder whether maybe Lisp people love macros because it allows them to extend Lisp's minimalist syntax with new constructs (like object-oriented programming with CLOS, while loops, etc.) Python, OTOH, has pretty rich syntax. It has a nice OOP system with syntactic support, while and for loops, generators, iterators, context managers, primitive coroutines, comprehensions, destructuring bind,.... -- What would I use macros for? (OK, depending on the syntax, I could add a "switch" statement, but that hardly seems worth the trouble.)
I should mention that I also saw some examples of people using macros for performance; you basically get rid of a function call and you can potentially make the inner loop of some critical function run really fast. But if that's all it buys me in Python-land (well, that and a switch statement), my motivation is pretty low. Because let's face it -- if your critical inner loop is written in pure Python, you can pretty easily throw it at Cython and get better performance than Python macros could ever provide.
So here's the question: does anyone out there have an idea of what macros would add to Python's power or expressiveness? Or maybe some Lisp, Meta OCAML, or Template Haskell hackers who can enlighten me as to what macros can add to a language with already rich syntax?
I have implemented MetaPython 0.1, a macro and code quoting system for Python, covered in the next blog post.
As I sat down to actually start figuring out what macro definitions and uses should look like in Python, I thought, hey, I'll just throw together a use case. But I haven't been able to come up with one (yet).
Most of the examples I found on the web focused on "hey, you can implement a 'while' loop with macros in Lisp!" or "hey, look at all the cool stuff the 'setf' macro can do!" So I started to wonder whether maybe Lisp people love macros because it allows them to extend Lisp's minimalist syntax with new constructs (like object-oriented programming with CLOS, while loops, etc.) Python, OTOH, has pretty rich syntax. It has a nice OOP system with syntactic support, while and for loops, generators, iterators, context managers, primitive coroutines, comprehensions, destructuring bind,.... -- What would I use macros for? (OK, depending on the syntax, I could add a "switch" statement, but that hardly seems worth the trouble.)
I should mention that I also saw some examples of people using macros for performance; you basically get rid of a function call and you can potentially make the inner loop of some critical function run really fast. But if that's all it buys me in Python-land (well, that and a switch statement), my motivation is pretty low. Because let's face it -- if your critical inner loop is written in pure Python, you can pretty easily throw it at Cython and get better performance than Python macros could ever provide.
So here's the question: does anyone out there have an idea of what macros would add to Python's power or expressiveness? Or maybe some Lisp, Meta OCAML, or Template Haskell hackers who can enlighten me as to what macros can add to a language with already rich syntax?
Update 2008-03-19
I have implemented MetaPython 0.1, a macro and code quoting system for Python, covered in the next blog post.
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