The Joy of Clojure

Chapter 8. Macros

If you give someone Fortran, he has Fortran. If you give someone Lisp, he has any language he pleases.

Guy Steele

 

This chapter covers

• Data is code is data
• Defining control structures
• Macros combining forms
• Using macros to control symbolic resolution time
• Using macros to manage resources
• Putting it all together: macros returning functions

 

Macros are where the rubber of “code is data” meets the road of making programs simpler and cleaner. To fully understand macros, you need to understand the different times of Clojure, of which macros perform the bulk of their work at compile time. We’ll start by looking at what it means for code to be data and data to be used as code. This is the background you’ll need to understand ...