jecxjo

I understand what you are saying. Its more of a claim that C/C++ does not need this project, as macros are not a necessity of the language.

I think the one thing that this project could provide (though due to the lack of function call access inside of macros that IS provided in Lisp macros maybe not) is to take that 10% of functionality that C/C++ does not provide and make it much more easily accessible. Of course this is always the difficult situation to discuss when first learning about Lisp macros because so much "standard" functionality already exists but I assume the old trusty could be applied here.

In many tutorials for learning Lisp macros the idea of "Lets say you wanted a statement (when <test> <expression>)." Its something that doesn't exist and the developer can add it in during development. You do not have to wait for someone else to implement this into your compiler.

This is a case where Lisp _needs_ macros to implement and where C/C++...can't do anything. Yes you can make a function that is similar to the format required but that is kind of the point. Its a hack to get the functionality and not something that looks natural.

As with everyone else, after reading I've realized I'm extremely bored at my current situation. The one thing I'm having difficulty taking away from it all is what to do about it. I work for a big company, been here for a decade, have become "The Guy" for two major product lines and have never really had a Team. In a decade I've done two...yes two projects. Each one all written by me, application code, kernel drivers, building a root file system. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours generating thousands and thousands of lines of code. I'm bored because I'm given a project and because they will not fund additional heads (I'd love just one but really should have 3 or 4) these projects take 3-5 years to complete. The beginning is interesting but after a few months it comes down to "Implement these 200 API calls" which gets old really really fast.

At a startup there are tons of tasks to get done and not enough people so you can easily jump from one area of the company to another. Your manager can say "Joe is getting board doing X, but Y needs to be done and its completely different." But what do you do when your job doesn't have other areas for you to jump to? We have different areas of the business but at this point I'd have to take a demotion to move...or become a manager and not code anymore.

I guess I've got more of a gripe than an actual comment. And I know a lot of people post about startups and small companies where change can actually occur. Sucks that I have to give up stability to get interesting work.

> If your company is exerting too much pressure on developers, then you probably did a poor job hiring enough employees or incentivizing them enough

I've noticed this to be a huge issue when it comes to large companies who try to defend the situation saying we are "lean" and reduce forces by "cutting the fat." I'm currently in a situation where I've become "The Guy" for two entire product lines and its gotten to the point where they keep tempting me with "You'll be on Next Generation SOON". But soon, in my eyes, will never come because I'm a single Engineer maintaining hundreds of thousands of lines of code, code that deals with an OS no one else uses, in build environments no one else uses.

What I use to think of as job security has become a pill that induced boredom.

I love the concept of TDD but can we please stop taking a topic, tweaking it ever so slightly and branding it with a new acronym? If you aren't doing some BDD when you are doing TDD then you probably are doing it wrong.