Subject: Re: Paul Graham's Arc is released today... what is the long term impact?
From: rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:52:45 -0600
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <27mdnTMQJsHwgzjanZ2dnUVZ_r6rnZ2d@speakeasy.net>
Maciej Katafiasz  <mathrick@gmail.com> wrote:
+---------------
| skrev Ken Tilton:
| > The funny thing is I have to stop calling PG a rock star BDFL because
| > when you give people MAC you cannot be a dictator.
| 
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_spoofing ?
+---------------

Uh... no. I think he meant <http://alu.org/HyperSpec/Body/mac_defmacro.html>,
since in Arc DEFMACRO is abbreviated [isn't everything?] to just MAC,
see <http://ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt>.

And Kenny's point was that once you give people macros, you lose
the ability to be able to dictate to them what syntax they can use.
At best you can attempt to herd them (like cats -- ha! fat chance)
into staying near a local minimum of "good style". [Though the
danger persists they will find a *better* (for them) local minimum
somewhere far away from what *you* think is "good style". Tough.]
Hence the suggested replacement of BDFL by BCHFL.


-Rob

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