Meta-Erlang (was RE: Erlang vs Java revisited)

[Vlad Dumitrescu]

Hi,

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ulf Wiger (AL/EAB)" <ulf.wiger@REDACTED>
> One of the annoying things about parse transforms is that
> you tend to have to cover the entire language even if you
> just want to add a small tweak.

Yes, I know, I tried it myself.

That's why I think that it would be interesting to explore how it would work 
to be able to embed this into the language proper (or more precisely, its 
meta-variant).

Example, a simple parse transform could look like this (just a rough 
sketch):

ParseTransform = meta:define(
    fun(F, A) ->
        io:format("start fun ~p(~p)", [P, A]),
        Result = apply(meta:splice(F), meta:splice(A)),
        io:format("returns ~p", [Result]),
        Result
    end
)

where
    meta:define() returns the abstract code for the argument
    meta:splice() inserts the arguments' value in the current abstract code 
tree

Then by defining
    -apply_parse_transform(ParseTransform, foo/2).
this parse transform would be applied in the compiled code.

Much simpler, right?

regards,
Vlad