One of the main goals is simplicity and maintainability. I want people to be able to jump into any code base (including stdlib and compiler) and understand what's going on. Macros don't help with that.
I went through like 10 names and ALL of them were taken. There are a lot of programming languages out there :)
On the other hand, they should be most of the code if taking a DSL- or MOP-like approach. The people using those will be very familiar with the higher-level language. There's a solid, lower-level language underneath for when the VHLL's don't work out. The macros help there.
I don't think that's the case.
That poster your comment goes to claimed that there are types of macros which make debugging harder - not code reading.
Debugging code which makes use of macros is more complicated than code without. There is no doubt about it. One part of it is that debugging happens in a different place -> code transformations with side-effects are running in a compiler or with interpreters at runtime.
Second, unsubstantiated proclamations like "Overuse of them led to LISP code being hard to read" reinforce the previous point. Could you provide a clear reference where Lisp macros are considered "mistakes of history"? Clear references where overuse of Lisp macros turned out to be a problem?
I'm curious if you've ever used a Lisp development environment with facilities such as interactive macroexpanders or if you're just assuming things based on your (incomplete, suspect) understanding of the domain.
Actually both versions are valid.
You seem to not know historical information about Lisp/LISP. While Common Lisp is spelled "Lisp" and more modern use is Lisp, historically LISP has been prevalent (and tons of Lisp dialects prefer the capitalized version, e.g. like "fooLISP" or "barLISP").
Second, you are concerned with superficial details people don't and should not care about. We're programmers, we care about the code and what you can do with it, not about whether some language is "properly" spelled in caps of mixed case.
Third, you are rude, which is worse than both of the above.
I learned about it from old books, often on AI, I could scrounge up when I didn't have the Internet or a computer. LISP as in LISt Processor. An acronym. Due to broken memory, I sometimes forget which term to use on stuff that's faded away. I end up about randomly using LISP or Lisp unless its Common Lisp where I usually see "Lisp" in write-ups.
So, good guess.
Capitalization isn't a deep signal.
There are lIsPs like Clojure that argue (> data functions macros). Although I mostly disagree (for example I love Racket macros), I understand and appreciate the sentiment. I have heard it from other people who have worked with a variety of LiSp code bases over the years. TL;DR: Any form of non-trivial DSL needs supporting materials like documentation and a simple, clear design.
Although it is nice to be able to expand macros, fully-expanded macro-generating macros are clear in approximately the same way as assembly language. It is impressive if you can navigate that, but even more impressive if can manage not to need to do so.
That's not really Lisp related. It's more like how the community likes to see code being written.
For example I would regularly make use of macros to provide more declarative syntax various programming concepts.
There are Lisp dialects which are light on macros and some which are using macros a lot more. For example the base language of Common Lisp already makes use of many macros by providing them to the user as part of the language (from DEFUN, DEFCLASS, ... INCF, upto LOOP).
V programming language https://www.vcode.org/
Have you read my articles about macros and what Zig does instead?
https://andrewkelley.me/post/zig-programming-language-blurs-...
I would be curious to hear your thoughts with this context.
I don’t think that “Basically like C but a tiny bit better” deserves to be associated with the word “diversity”.
I thought it was a new name for Zig seeing your name and the description in the link. ;) It actually looks about too good to be true, especially that it can handle any C++ to V conversion. I was pushing people to check out languages like ZL exactly to rid us of C++ without throwing away legacy code. If it can do that and fast compiles, I can't wait to read the full write-up later on.
Btw, I encourage you to keep at Zig for diversity in systems, language space. Plus, macros. I tell people to avoid them by default for more maintainable code. However, there's times where it's better to have them than not have them. I was happy to see D, Rust, and Julia do macros. Zig and V should have them, too, for max productivity.
To amedvednikov:
1. The name. Although Kesterel had a V language, that was long time ago. You're not stepping on anything. I just encourage you to do one people can spell and pronounce easily that isn't already taken. That will make both search results and adoption a little better.
2. Macros. Like I said above. I saw you mention Go which intentionally tries to keep a standardized language for maintainability and easy compilation. I get that. You could add a warning to the main page that macros are available but discouraged for most situations for those reasons. "Use them only when the cost is worth it." Can just do two passes: one for macros, one for regular code. Your incremental compilation should knock out most of what little slowdown there is.