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in reply to Macros, LFSPs and LFMs

I'm looking forward to macros. I agree with other posts that the "LFSP/LFM" split can be arbitrary. If you're going to use that split, however, Perl is explicitly both. Beginners can use Perl baby talk to get stuff done, while advanced folks are doing brain-twisting stuff with tied variables, objects, and closures (oh my!). I'm reasonably certain that baby-talk Perl folks will shy away from macros until they feel ready.

The only reservation I have is the possibility that naive developers will end up using a macro to reimplement a language feature that already exists. If they were doing this as an education exercise, it makes perfect sense. There's just this nagging feeling that somebody will put them in production code, and we'll be the ones who get to maintain / repair their code somewhere down the line :-)