macros

[William Clinger <will@fog.cs.uoregon.edu>]

Hal Abelson wrote:

    I think that, at minumum, R4RS should have a section entitiled
    something like "Provisional proposal for macros"....

    The macro committee should get its collective head together and write
    such a proposal....

    Will, please give the macro committee a deadline for how long you will
    wait for this report....

Ok.  I hereby decree that you folks on the macro committee (you know
who you are!) have until Monday, 19 June, to deliver said report to me
by electronic mail.  I'm leaving for the east coast on the following day,
so this is a firm deadline.

In the event that the macro committee cannot agree on something, Hal
said that the macro committee should

    ...write TWO proposals.  One would be along the lines of
    extend-syntax; the other based upon semantic closures.  The full
    proposal should descibe both of these, together with a brief
    introduction that explains what the issues are, gives reasons why we
    are not yet ready to commit to either proposal (hopefully there are
    reasons, other than political ones), and sets forth some problems that
    we hope to solve in future R*RS documents.  I nominate Jonathan Rees
    to write this overview.

I second the nomination.  Jonathan, I further request that if the macro
committee is unable even to agree on the two-proposal option, then you
should send me a brief note explaining why the committee is unable to
agree.

Peace, Will