Macros -> declarations

["Scott E. Fahlman" <Fahlman@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>]

OK, I never doubted that people could make up cases where this macro ->
declare expansion appears to be useful.  I just doubted that it really
would be an important mechanism in practice, or at least important
enough to justify the pain it causes.

Is there any hope that we can all agree on flushing macro -> declaration
expansion and replacing it with something like Skef's "declaration
macro" proposal?  You state that this is the minimum acceptable position
(minimun acceptable amount of hair, I guess), and for me it's about the
maximum acceptable position.  It would seem to cover about 99% of the
cases where people claim that they need the macro expansion.

I agree that if taken to the logical extreme, this proliferation of
specialized macro-like forms is bad news.  On the other hand, one might
argue that macroexpanding potential declarations is also the start of a
slippery slide that, if taken to the logical extreme, could be equally
disastrous.  Maybe we could try to solve the problem at hand and agree
that taking things to their logical extremes is probably a bad idea in a
language this complex and this full of compromises.

-- Scott