Re: [Chicken-users] define-syntax available *by default*?

[felix winkelmann]

On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 09:59:22 +0000, Tony Garnock-Jones
<address@hidden> wrote:
> felix winkelmann wrote:
> > Yes, but the initial macros required have to be expanded at runtime.
> > (Like syntax-rules, which is just a wrapper around syntax-case, or
> > and, or, let, cond, etc.).
> 
> That sounds really fishy. I've never seen a psyntax embedding that has
> that behaviour. I'll take a look at the code to see what's going on.
> 

That's because (IMHO) chicken is the only implementation that
uses psyntax that supports separate compilation.
Chez and SISC both provide images, so once the whole stuff is defined
(presumably programmatically, by defining the macros during image
setup), everything is there and can be saved and reinstantiated
completely.
In Chicken, we can't just hook in the expander and add `define-syntax'
definitions for all built-in macros: it's compiled into binary/executable
form. The expansions (and thus the instantiation of the builtin macros)
happen at compile-time, but we need to instantiate them at run-time,
when chicken (or csi) starts up.

If you can find a solution, I'd be really grateful. But note that I have already
pondered over this for quite a while.


cheers,
felix